Experimental investigation of active yaw moment control system using a momentum wheel

Active yaw moment control is one of the most effective methods to improve the lateral stability and safety of vehicle. In this method, the overall yaw moment of the vehicle is modified by applying the corrective yaw moment generated by the systems that are mostly dependent on the tyre and road interaction. A unique technique to generate the corrective yaw moment has been considered and experimentally analysed in this work. This system utilizes a momentum wheel to generate the corrective yaw moment, which is independent of the tyre/road interaction, and is not limited by the adhesion between the tyre and road. A prototype model has been designed and developed to conduct the experimental tests and also to analyse the vehicle dynamics responses and examine the effectiveness of the designed controller. A microcontroller along with the essential sensors has been employed in the prototype to execute the embedded control system, which consists of the control algorithms, states estimator and the Kalman filter. This system provides a better vehicle performance and improves the responses of vehicle on low-friction roads. Experimental results also confirmed that the momentum wheel performance is not limited by the tyre/road adhesion condition