Vehicle control system reduces trailer sway for safer towing
Model-Based Trailer-Sway Suppression for Autonomous Passenger Vehicles
Robotics
Summary
Trailer sway is a dangerous side-to-side movement that can happen when cars tow trailers, especially if the weight is placed incorrectly. The authors developed a math-based control system that helps stop this swaying by adjusting the car’s steering. They designed a way to estimate trailer movement using only sensors on the car itself, without needing sensors on the trailer. Their tests in a simulation show this system can reduce trailer sway and improve safety for autonomous or assisted driving.
What this means in practice
- •For automotive control engineers: Add trailer-sway suppression to autonomous and driver-assist vehicle steering systems using only tow-vehicle sensors.
- •For vehicle safety system designers: Develop safer towing stability features that estimate trailer dynamics without needing trailer-mounted sensors.
Authors
Alec McFadyen, Pablo Covarrubias De La Torre, Connor McGovern
Abstract
Trailer sway is a persistent contributor to severe crashes among light passenger vehicles towing trailers, yet it remains largely unaddressed by the autonomous vehicle systems now entering this new era of automation. Improper cargo placement rearward of the trailer axle reduces, and can invert, the tongue load transmitted through the hitch. The resulting loss of vertical load at the tow vehicle's rear axle diminishes the lateral tire force available there and degrades yaw stability of the coupled system, admitting a divergent lateral oscillation of the trailer known as trailer sway. Under adverse combinations of speed and loading, this oscillation can progress to jackknifing, in which the articulation angle diverges rapidly and directional control is lost. This work develops a linear state-space model of the yaw-plane dynamics of a light vehicle-trailer combination, parameterized to expose tongue load as an explicit stability-determining quantity. From this model a linear quadratic regulator is synthesized to suppress articulation-angle divergence. Because consumer trailers carry no sensors, the two trailer states the controller needs, trailer yaw rate and articulation angle, are estimated by a Kalman filter from measurements taken only on the tow vehicle. The controller is then implemented and evaluated in a MuJoCo multibody simulation across a range of longitudinal speeds and tongue-load conditions, including the negative-tongue-load regime. Results show a significant decrease in trailer oscillation when controlling a given vehicle's steering with an LQR using tow-vehicle IMU and LiDAR data. These findings indicate that LQR controlled anti-sway systems are a viable control method for future autonomous vehicles.