New rollover index for detection of tripped and un-tripped rollovers

Accurate detection of the danger of an impending rollover is necessary for active vehicle rollover prevention. A real-time rollover index is an indicator used for this purpose. A traditional rollover index utilizes lateral acceleration measurements and can detect only un-tripped rollovers that happen due to high lateral acceleration from a sharp turn. It fails to detect tripped rollovers that happen due to tripping from external inputs such as forces when a vehicle strikes a curb or a road bump. Therefore, this paper develops a new rollover index that can detect both tripped and un-tripped rollovers. The new rollover index utilizes vertical accelerometers in addition to a lateral accelerometer and is able to predict rollover in spite of unknown external inputs acting on the system. The accuracy of the developed rollover index is evaluated with experimental tests on a 1/8th scaled vehicle. The experimental results show that the new rollover index can reliably detect both tripped and un-tripped rollovers.