Technical Articles

Model-Based Design of an SUV Antirollover Control System

By Vinod Cherian, Rohit Shenoy, Alec Stothert, Justin Shriver, and Jason Ghidella, MathWorks, and Thomas D. Gillespie, Mechanical Simulation Corporation


This article presents a methodology for applying Model-Based Design to develop and automatically optimize vehicle stability control systems. Such systems are employed to improve the dynamic rollover stability of sport utility vehicles (SUVs). A nonlinear vehicle model, representative of a midsized SUV, is built in CarSim®. This vehicle model is used in Simulink® to design a control system that reduces the risk of rollover. Optimization methods automatically adjust controller parameters to meet the system specifications that ensure the stability of the vehicle. Cosimulation between the two software packages enables rapid design and verification of control algorithms in a virtual environment. The results of the simulation experiments can be visualized through a 3D animation of vehicle motion. The control system is adapted for the specific vehicle model, enabling it to remain stable under standard test conditions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations' (NHTSA) fishhook maneuver was used to estimate dynamic rollover stability of the vehicle and benchmark the performance of the SUV both with and without the optimized controller.

Copyright © 2008 by The MathWorks, Inc. Published by SAE International, with permission.

This paper was presented at SAE World Congress.

Read full paper.

Published 2008

View Articles for Related Capabilities

View Articles for Related Industries