ABSTRACT
This paper describes the stabilization of articulated vehicles at high speeds by a steering system set up on the trailer.
First, the equations of motion of the articulated vehicles with a steering system on the trailer were obtained. Furthermore, the steering angle of the trailer in the presence of disturbances was studied by solving these equations through the application of modern control theory. From such analysis, the magnitude of the optimal feedback coefficients of each state variable was obtained. It was found that the stability of articulated vehicles at high speeds was significantly improved by the active control method for the trailer steering system.
However, the active control system needs a power supply, and it is difficult to apply it to articulated vehicles at present, especially for passenger car-trailer combinations. Thus, a new trailer steering system with viscous coupling arms to be set between the tractor and trailer was proposed. Furthermore, the semi-active control method which controls the damping factor of viscous coupling arms on the trailer was studied by applying the optimal control theory. It was found that this method was quite effective for achieving stability of articulated vehicles at high speeds.
