Title: Enhancing roll and lateral stability of a 3-axle heavy vehicle through ARC and AFS control

Authors: Erfan Sabzalian; Mahyar Naraghi; Maryam Ghassabzadeh Saryazdi

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 424 Hafez Avenue, Tehran, 15914, Iran ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 424 Hafez Avenue, Tehran, 15914, Iran ' Technology Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 424 Hafez Avenue, Tehran, 15914, Iran

Abstract: Ensuring the stability of heavy-duty trucks is crucial to prevent accidents, as their high centre of gravity makes them prone to rollovers. Alongside lateral stability, roll stability is a critical control parameter, and this paper proposes a strategy that uses two subsystems to simultaneously control the vehicle's roll angle and yaw rate. The active roll subsystem employs a Fuzzy-PD controller to generate the desired torque, while the active front steering (AFS) subsystem uses a sliding mode controller to track the desired yaw rate. To test the effectiveness of the proposed strategy, simulations are carried out using a full TruckSim model as a simulation model. The controller model consists of a 2-DOF 3-axle generalised bicycle model and a 1-DOF roll model. For instance, the simulation results in the J-Turn and Sine manoeuvre illustrate that the proposed strategy enhances the vehicle's stable speed range by up to 32.8%, particularly when the two subsystems operate simultaneously.

Keywords: AFS; active front steering; active roll; roll stability; 3-axle heavy vehicle.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHVS.2026.153675

International Journal of Heavy Vehicle Systems, 2026 Vol.33 No.2, pp.173 - 190

Received: 04 Aug 2024
Accepted: 06 Jan 2025
Published online: 21 May 2026 *

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