The development of tilt-controlled narrow ground vehicles

Narrow commuter vehicles can address congestion, parking and pollution issues associated with urban transportation. In order for narrow commuter vehicles to become acceptable to the driving public, they must be easy to drive and perceptibly provide the same level of safety as bigger passenger vehicles. This requires that they be relatively tall in spite of being narrow. Tall vehicles tend to overturn during tight cornering. The driver of a narrow vehicle such as a motorcycle must tilt the vehicle into the curve to compensate for the tilting moment due to the lateral acceleration generated by the tires. The use of an active tilt control system to assist the driver in balancing the vehicle (as well as in automatic tilting while cornering) is expected to greatly enhance the acceptability of narrow vehicles. This paper concentrates on the development of a prototype narrow commuter vehicle with automatic tilt control. The prototype narrow vehicle built at the University of Minnesota is presented. A dynamic model for the prototype vehicle is developed. The challenges in the development of a reliable tilt control system are discussed and control system design for control with two different types of actuators is analyzed.