Evaluation of electronic stability controllers using hardware-in-the-loop vehicle simulator

Hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulation is a very powerful tool to design, test and verify automotive control systems. However, well-validated and high degree of freedom vehicle models have to be utilized in these simulations in order to obtain realistic results. In this paper, a vehicle dynamics model developed in the Carsim Real Time program environment and its validation has been performed using experimental results. The developed Carsim real time model has been employed in the Tofas R&D hardware-in-the-loop simulator. Experimental and hardware-in-the-loop simulation results have been compared for the standard FMVSS No. 126 test and the results have been found to be in good agreement with each other. Two electronic stability control (ESC) algorithms, named the Basic ESC and the Integrated ESC, taken from the earlier work of the authors have been tested and evaluated in the hardware-in-the-loop simulator. Different evaluation methods have been formulated and used to compare these ESC algorithms. As a result, the Integrated ESC system has been shown superior performance as compared to the Basic ESC algorithm.