Tractional Stability Control System for Automobiles (Based on Integrated ABS and Weight Transfer Mechanism)

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Tractional Stability Control System for Automobiles is an innovation that has been specifically designed to provide stability to the vehicle during extreme maneuvers like high-speed cornering. This innovation can prove as one of the most effective safety installations in an automobile. This system incorporates use of vehicle dynamics to enhance the handling characteristics of the vehicle during extreme vehicle operations like cornering. The system is comprised of a dynamically varying wheelbase (Weight Transfer Mechanism) which can vary the normal load acting on the tires which in turn modifies the tractive forces of the tire. The stability of the vehicle completely relies on the tractional forces (longitude and lateral forces) of the tire.

 There are four main sub-systems of this invention that operate in a constant feedback loop to stabilize the vehicle maneuver. It consists of a Weight Transfer Mechanism, Anti-lock Braking System, a Monitoring unit consisting of vehicle sensors and a Controller. The system is triggered when the vehicle sensors observe that the vehicle is entering a Transient state cornering maneuver. The function of Monitoring Unit and Controller is to constantly monitor and process the sensor data respectively. The purpose of the monitoring unit would be to acquire data from vehicle sensors and provide a continuous feed to the controller. The controller would perform all the necessary processing and produce control signals to actuate weight transfer mechanism to produce required displacements to ensure stability of the vehicle pertaining to current vehicle state. The monitoring unit comprises of mainly wheel speed sensors, yaw rate gyros, lateral and longitudinal accelerometers and load sensors for each suspension sub-assembly. The control signals generated by the controller are fed to the weight transfer mechanism which produces the required displacement of the wheels to ensure the stability of the vehicle. The Weight Transfer Mechanism comes only in action when the system actuates it after sensing that the vehicle is about to corner. The basic principle on which this mechanism is based is the effect of braking. The effect of applying brakes on a moving vehicle causes transfer of its weight partly, from the rear to the front wheels. Static analysis of Weight transfer effect significantly show that the load on the wheels during braking basically depend upon vehicle geometry i.e. the distance of the wheels from the center of gravity of the vehicle.

 The function of ABS is to regulate the brake pressure of individual wheels which would experience braking force during the maneuver. ABS will regulate the wheel slip within a limit such that the Tractive force generated by the wheel varies linearly with the longitudinal slip. This condition will enable the controller to make exact approximations of the Total Tractive force generated by each wheel as Tractive force developed vary according to the wheel slip and the Normal load on the wheel. The controller shall estimate the amount of weight to be increased or decreased on the front and rear tires by displacing the suspension sub-assembly by the weight transfer mechanism.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Shantanu Mishra
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Shantanu's hobbies and activities:
    My key areas of Interest is Automobile and Aerospace. I am currently working in the Aerospace domain. I like to research in these fields to come up with ideas that have the potential to revolutionize these industries and the ones that are coming up.
  • Shantanu belongs to these online communities:
    SAE-India
    SAE-International
    SAE-International Journal of Aerospace
  • Shantanu is inspired by:
    I got the initial concept for this design when my team had participated in a National Motorsport event. The race-track in that event was full of tight corners. Vehicles trying to corner at high speeds usually went out of control due to loss of stability. This inspired me to begin a research on studying the vehicle dynamics of Automobiles during extreme maneuvers and the Techniques to stabilize their handling characteristics incorporated through existing Electronic stability control (ESC) systems. The objective was to investigate the control parameters that influence the improvements in vehicle stability like wheel slip, spark ignition timing and Active differential control etc. that are conventionally used and finding out alternative solutions to improve the vehicle performance which can otherwise be only minimized using conventional ESCs. We came up with the idea of a dynamically varying wheelbase for vehicles and proposed a Mathematical Model for designing the control scheme. This research of ours was a part of the SAE 2013 Brake Colloquium and Exhibition in San Diego. (paper no 2012-01-1829)
  • Software used for this entry:
    Catia-V5, MSC Adams
  • Patent status:
    pending