A novel prediction and evaluation method for vehicle stability

The vehicle stability performance is of great significance during the vehicle product development and electronic control system parameter calibration, especially the transient motion process of the vehicle. Most previous evaluation methods are mainly vehicle performance indexes, such as sideslip angle. Since the vehicle motion is a transient process from the tyre to the vehicle, in this paper, a wheel characteristic index namely the polymerisation degree of tyre steering centres (TSCs) is tried to predict vehicle stability earlier. Two calculation methods for steering centre including the particle motion trajectory method and the rigid body kinematics method are developed and compared. The polymerisation degree of TSCs is proposed and applied to the evaluation and prediction of vehicle stability. The simulation results show that the proposed index can evaluate the vehicle transient handling performance more sensitively, thus reserving more time for vehicle stability control with potential.