Active Wheelbase Design for Narrow Track Vehicle Stability

Abstract

In recent years, narrow track vehicles have gained considerable interest due to the compactness and its future potential. However, the vehicles are likely to have low stability against overturning especially during hard cornering. In this work, a new design concept named “Active Wheelbase” was proposed to improve the vehicle stability during cornering. A tricycle model was developed to analyze the effects of the active wheelbase design. Motion equations of the model were derived to investigate the dynamics characteristics of the vehicle. Multibody model was built in order to conduct simulations to verify the stability improvement by the active wheelbase design.