ROBUST CONTROLLER DESIGN FOR IMPROVING VEHICLE ROLL CONTROL

This paper presents a robust controller design approach for improving vehicle dynamic roll motion performance and guaranteeing the closed-loop system stability in spite of vehicle parameter variations resulting from aging elements, loading patterns, and driving conditions, etc. The designed controller is linear parameter-varying (LPV) in terms of the time-varying parameters; its control objective is to minimise the $H_{\infty}$ performance from the steering input to the roll angle while satisfying the closed-loop pole placement constraint such that the optimal dynamic roll motion performance is achieved and robust stability is guaranteed. The sufficient conditions for designing such a controller are given as a finite number of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Numerical simulation using the three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) yaw-roll vehicle model is presented. It shows that the designed controller can effectively improve the vehicle dynamic roll angle response during J-turn or fishhook maneuver when the vehicle's forward velocity and the roll stiffness are varied significantly.