Lateral stability control of truck and centre-axle-trailer combinations under crosswind disturbances

Crosswind disturbances may cause rollover or lane departure of truck and centre-axle-trailer (TCAT) combinations. To increase the safety of TCATs, a crosswind model is introduced and a 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) yaw-plane model is generated for developing a lateral stability control technique. Numerical simulation is conducted to examine the resulting dynamic responses under varying crosswind disturbances. To verify the 3-DOF model, the simulation results under a single lane-change (SLC) manoeuvre under a crosswind disturbance are compared against those based on the corresponding nonlinear TruckSim model. To effectively reject crosswind disturbances, a braking torque distribution strategy is proposed, by which the direct yaw moment control (DYC) is implemented using a fuzzy-PID algorithm. The simulation shows that the directional performance of TCAT is improved when the DYC activates under crosswind disturbances. The proposed active safety technique can reduce the risk of crosswind-induced instabilities of TCATs.