Abstract
In this paper, a planar car model with 3 degrees of freedom was analyzed using the concept of the roll center. To avoid ambiguity, force components which require experimental data were excluded. Only kinematic approach was used to find the position and orientation of the vehicle body and the position of the roll center. The roll center was found by the pole with infinitesimal movement and Kennedy-Aronhold theorem. Centrodes, which are the loci of instantaneous centers of planar motion, were constructed with analyzed results to show characteristics of vehicle body motion. To verify the presented analysis method in this paper, the locus of the roll center and the motion of a 3 D.O.F. planar car model were compared with those of the 1 D.O.F. model.