Research on vehicle stability technology based on wheel force

ESC (Electronic Stability Control) system determines the dynamic stability of a vehicle with information fed from sensors in the vehicle, suppresses side slip by controlling the torques of the brakes and engine, and secures stability during cornering. The currently commercialized ESC system predicts wheel force, which is directly related to the attitude of a vehicle, from the body behavior information. It is thus limited by the time-delay accompanying the suspension reaction. Studies on next generation ESC systems thus attempt to measure the wheel force directly and apply it to ESC. This paper compared and analyzed the fundamental differences between control based on body behavior information — yaw rate used in the commercial ESC system — and control based on force information, the ESC system that is expected to be developed in the future, as well as the systems' performance. In conclusion, control based on body behavior information employed in the commercial ESC system is inevitably accompanied by a delay in response time for vehicle behavior due to its structure, and the superiority of control based on wheel force over the commercial ESC system in terms of response time and vehicle attitude stability was verified.