OPTIMAL ROLL CONTROL OF A SINGLE-UNIT LORRY

Lateral acceleration control and linear quadratic regulator (LQR) theo ry are used to design active roll control systems for heavy goods vehi cles. The suspension consists of a limited bandwidth hydraulic actuato r in series with an anti-roll bar. The procedure used to determine sui table 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 s teering input. The static roll-over threshold of this vehicle is incre ased by 66 per cent when compared with the same vehicle with passive s uspensions and the r.m.s. lateral load transfer is reduced by 34 per c ent for a typical random steering input.