Design of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) Systems for Car-trailer Combinations

Abstract

This paper presents the design of an electronic stability control (ESC) system based on trailer differential braking for increasing safety and improving handling performance of car-trailer combinations. Numerical simulations were performed using CarSim software to assess the performance of the proposed control strategies of the ESC system. To validate the virtual design of the ESC system for car-trailer combinations, a small scaled physical prototype (1:10) of a car-trailer combination was fabricated and tested. The prototype consists of an aluminum frame, accelerometer, and two wheels equipped with an electromagnetic differential braking actuator. Numerical simulation and prototype testing demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed ESC system for car-trailer combinations.