A Car Body Tilt Control Method for a High Speed Curving Vehicle : First report, Basic Studies with a Controlled Physical Pendulum

Abstract

In order to guarantee the ride comfort of a high speed curving vehicle, two conditions must be fulfilled. One is that the lateral stationary acceleration felt on board the curving vehicle should not exceed 0.8 m/s². The other is that the car body should not tilt too abruptly at the entrance and exit of a curve. As it is difficult for a natural pendulum vehicle to fulfil these conditions simultaneously, the introduction of car body tilt control is necessary. In this report, fundamental aspects of the tilt control system are studied by means or a simplified physical pendulum model, in which the swing angle of the pendulum is feed-back-controlled through target value functions, and the system dealt with here is shown to be promising.