Optimal Roll Control of a Single-Unit Lorry

Abstract

Lateral acceleration control and linear quadratic regulator (LQR) theory are used to design active roll control systems for heavy goods vehicles. The suspension consists of a limited bandwidth hydraulic actuator in series with an anti-roll bar. The procedure used to determine suitable controller gains is described. The simulation results show that roll control of a single-unit lorry requires an actuator bandwidth of 6 Hz and mean power of approximately 17 kW for a ‘worst case’ random steering input. The static roll-over threshold of this vehicle is increased by 66 per cent when compared with the same vehicle with passive suspensions and the r.m.s. lateral load transfer is reduced by 34 per cent for a typical random steering input.