Technical Paper
Dynamic Performance of Adaptive Cruise Control Vehicles
2005-04-11
2005-01-0403
Although many different types of Adaptive Cruise Controller (ACC) have been developed to maintain a constant headway between lead and following vehicles, little is known about the dynamic performance of such controllers during cornering and in adverse environmental conditions. There are currently no standard guidelines for the use of ACC systems in such scenarios. Use of the controller in adverse weather or cornering conditions may lead to braking and handling instabilities, or unwanted accelerations being transmitted to the driver in the forms of pitch and roll. These dynamic characteristics are especially important when one considers that ACC systems are being marketed not as safety devices but to aid driver comfort. This paper presents an ACC algorithm that can be tuned to provide desirable dynamic characteristics as well as high-quality kinematic results. The performance of the controller is evaluated using a high-fidelity 9 degree of freedom vehicle model.