IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 60, NO.

9, NOVEMBER 2011 4217

Design of a Preview Controller for
Vehicle Rollover Prevention
Seongjin Yim
AbstractThis paper presents a method for designing a preview
controller for vehicle rollover prevention. It is assumed that a
drivers steering input is previewable with a Global Positioning
System(GPS) and an inertial measurement unit (IMU), or with an
automatic steering system for collision avoidance. Based on a lin-
ear vehicle model, a linear optimal preview controller is designed.
To avoid the full-state measurement of a linear quadratic regulator
(LQR), linear quadratic static output feedback (LQ SOF) control
is adopted. To compare with several types of controllers such as
LQR or LQ SOF with respect to rollover prevention capabilities,
Bode plot analysis based on a linear vehicle model is performed.
To show the effectiveness of the proposed controller, simulations
are performed on a vehicle simulation package CarSim.
Index TermsLinear quadratic static output feedback
(LQ SOF), preview control, vehicle rollover prevention.
NOMENCLATURE
a
x
Longitudinal acceleration (in meters per square
second).
a
y
Lateral acceleration (in meters per square second).
C
f
, C
r
Cornering stiffness of front/rear tire (in Newtons
per radian).
C

Roll damping coefcient (in Newton-meter-second

per radian).
F
yf
, F
yr
Lateral tire force of front/rear wheel (in Newtons).
F
R
z
, F
L
z
Sum of right/left vertical tire forces (in Newtons).
F
x,brake
Braking force to decelerate a vehicle (in Newtons).
f
1
, f
2
Active suspension forces (in Newtons).
g Gravitational acceleration constant (9.81 m/s
2
).
h
e
Height of a roll center from ground (in meters).
h
s
Height of CG from a roll center (in meters).
I
x
, I
z
roll/yaw moment of inertia about roll axis (kg m
2
).
K
B
Pressureforce constant (in Newtons per
Megapasca).
K

Steady-state gain of the reference yaw rate.

K

Roll damping coefcient (in Newton-meters

per radian).
l
f
, l
r
Distance from CG to front/rear axle (in meters).
M
B
Control yaw moment (in Newton-meters).
Manuscript received December 27, 2010; revised May 10, 2011 and
August 1, 2011; accepted September 18, 2011. Date of publication
September 26, 2011; date of current version December 9, 2011. This work
was supported by Advanced Institutes of Convergence Technology under Grant
2011-P3-08. The review of this paper was coordinated by Prof. J. Wang.
The author is with Advanced Institutes of Convergence Technology, Seoul
National University, Suwon 443-270, Korea (e-mail: acebtif@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TVT.2011.2169687
m Vehicle total mass (in kilograms).
m
s
Sprung mass (in kilograms).
r
w
Radius of a wheel (in meters).
R Lateral load transfer (LTR).

R LTR threshold.
t
f
Track width of a front axle (in meters).
T
s
Sampling rate (in seconds).
v
x
, v
y
Longitudinal/lateral velocity of a vehicle (in meters
per second).

f
,
r
Tire slip angle of front/rear wheel (in radians).
Yaw rate (in radians per second).

d
Reference yaw rate (in radians per second).
Roll angle (in radians).

Roll rate (in radians per second).

f
Front steering angle (in radians).

max
Maximum steering angle of shhook maneuver
(in degrees).

R
Emergency steering angle (in radians).
Tireroad friction coefcient.
I. INTRODUCTION
I
N THE LAST decade, a widespread supply of sports utility
vehicles (SUVs) with a high CGhas led to increased rollover
accidents. Most rollover accidents are fatal since the rollover
rate in fatal crashes is quite high. Although the portion of
fatalities in all crashes has slightly decreased from 36.3% to
33.7% in the last eight years, vehicle rollover still accounts
for a large portion of all deaths caused by passenger vehicle
crashes [1]. Hence, vehicle rollover should be prevented for
passenger safety.
Untripped rollover occurs due to the large lateral acceleration
by excessive steering at high speed. Therefore, it is necessary
to reduce lateral acceleration to prevent rollover. Following
this idea, several control schemes were proposed. The most
common scheme is to reduce the reference yaw rate or the lon-
gitudinal velocity through differential braking or active steering
to make a vehicle exhibit understeer characteristics [2][8]. As
a measure of rollover threat, lateral acceleration, LTR, or time-
to-rollover has been used [7], [8]. However, this reduction in the
reference yaw rate may cause another kind of accident, such
as a crash or a tripped rollover. The other approach is to use
active suspension or active antiroll bar to attenuate the effect
of lateral acceleration on the roll motion of the vehicle, under
the assumption that the lateral acceleration is an uncontrollable
disturbance [9], [10]. In this paper, a rollover prevention con-
troller is designed with a linear optimal control methodology.
Differential braking and active suspension are used as actuators.
0018-9545/$26.00 2011 IEEE
4218 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 60, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2011
Fig. 1. Three-degree-of-freedom vehicle model. (a) 2-DOF bicycle model.
(b) 1-DOF roll model.
To avoid full-state measurement of linear quadratic regulator
(LQR), a linear quadratic static output feedback (LQ SOF)
control methodology is adopted.
Linear optimal preview control was adopted for ride com-
fort enhancement in designing an active suspension controller
[11]. In developing the driver model, a preview control is
inherent since a driver previews the future path to generate a
steering input. Based on the previewed path, a proportional
integraldifferential or LQ preview control methodology was
adopted in designing a driver model [12], [13]. By virtue of the
recent development of sensor technologies such as Global Po-
sitioning System (GPS) and inertial measurement unit (IMU),
a drivers steering input can be previewable by a model predic-
tive control if it is combined with map information [14]. On
the other hand, a drivers steering input is also previewable if
an automatic steering system for collision avoidance is adopted
[15]. Under these situations, it is possible to design a pre-
view controller, which shows better performance in preventing
vehicle rollover.
This paper is organized as follows: In Section II, the design
procedure of a preview controller for rollover prevention is
presented. In Section III, Bode plot analysis is performed
on a linear vehicle model, and simulations are performed on
the commercial multibody dynamics software Carsim [16].
Section IV concludes this paper.
II. DESIGN OF A PREVIEW CONTROLLER FOR
ROLLOVER PREVENTION
A. Vehicle Model
The vehicle model used in this paper is a 3-degree-of-
freedom (DOF) model, as shown in Fig. 1. This model consists
of a 2-DOF bicycle and a 1-DOF roll model to describe the yaw
and the lateral motion, and the roll motion, respectively.
The equations of motion for this vehicle model are given as
follows [17]:
Lateral motion
ma
y
m
s
h
s

= F
yf
+ F
yr
. (1)
Yaw motion
I
z
+ I
zx

I
xy

2
= l
f
F
yf
l
r
F
yr
+ M
B
. (2)
Roll motion
I
x

+ I
xz
I
yz

2
m
s
h
s
a
y
= C

+ m
s
gh
s
+
t
2
f
1

t
2
f
2
. (3)
In these equations, M
B
, f
1
, and f
2
are the control yaw mo-
ment by differential braking and the active suspension forces,
respectively. In (2) and (3), the square terms

2
and
2
, and
the cross moment of inertia, I
xz
, I
xy
, and I
yz
were neglected
because they have slight effect on the model accuracy. The road
bank angle is not considered in this model. In (1) and (3), lateral
acceleration a
y
is dened as follows:
a
y
= v
y
+ v
x
. (4)
In (1) and (2), it is assumed that the lateral tire forces F
yf
and F
yr
are proportional to the tire slip angle for small , as
shown in
F
yf
= C
f

f
, F
yr
= C
r

r
(5).
Tire slip angle is dened as the difference between the
direction of wheel velocity and the steering angle. The tire slip
angles of the front and rear wheels can be obtained through the
approximation tan
1
() as follows:

f
=
v
y
+ l
f

v
x

f
,
r
=
v
y
l
r

v
x
. (6)
Constants C
f
and C
r
are valid within the linear regions
where is small. If goes over the saturated region of F
y
,
the constant cornering stiffness assumption is no longer valid.
Moreover, F
y
varies according to the variation of .
The reference yaw rate
d
generated by the drivers steering
input
f
is modeled with a rst-order system as follows:

d
=
_
K

s + 1
_

f
=
C
f
C
r
(l
f
+ l
r
) v
x
C
f
C
r
(l
f
+ l
r
)
2
+ m v
2
x
(l
r
C
r
l
f
C
f
)

_

f
s + 1
_
(7)
where is the time constant, and K

is the steady-state yaw

rate gain determined by the speed of vehicle [18].
The state-space representation of (7) is given as

d
=
1

d
+
K

f
. (8)
The error of yaw rate e

is dened as the difference between

the actual yaw rate and the reference
d
, as shown in
e

=
d
. (9)
State x, control input u, and disturbance w are dened as
follows:
x

=[v
y



d
]
T
u

=[M
B
f
1
f
2
]
T
w

=
f
. (10)
YIM: DESIGN OF PREVIEW CONTROLLER FOR VEHICLE ROLLOVER PREVENTION 4219
From these denitions and equations of motion, the
continuous-time state-space equation of the vehicle model is
obtained as
x = Ax +B
1
w+B
2
u. (11)
The detailed description on the derivation of the state-space
model can be found in [19].
The discrete-time equivalent of (11) can be obtained with
the zero-order hold technique and the sampling time T
s
as
follows [20]:
x(k + 1) = A
d
x(k) +B
1,d
w(k) +B
2,d
u(k) (12)
where A
d

= e
AT
s
, B
1,d

= (
_
T
s
0
A
d
()d)B
1
, and B
2,d

=
(
_
T
s
0
A
d
()d)B
2
.
B. Discrete-Time LQ SOF Controller Design for Rollover
Prevention
The discrete-time LQ cost function for rollover prevention is
given as follows:
J =

k=1
_
q
1
e
2

(k) + q
2
a
2
y
(k) + q
3

2
(k) + q
4

2
(k)
+ q
5
M
2
B
(k) + q
6
f
2
1
(k) + q
6
f
2
2
(k)

. (13)
In (13), q
i
is the weight of each objective. By tuning the value
of q
i
, it is possible to emphasize each objective. The weights q
i
of the LQ cost function are set by the relation q
i
= 1/
2
i
from
Brysons rule, where
i
represents the maximum allowable
value of each term [21].
The LQ cost function (13) can be converted into the follow-
ing discrete-time equivalent form:
J =

k=1
[C
2
x(k) +D
2
u(k)]
T
[C
2
x(k) +D
2
u(k)]
=

k=1
_
x
T
(k)Qx(k) +u
T
(k)N
T
x(k)
+ x
T
(k)Nu(k) +u
T
(k)Ru(k)

(14)
where
Q

=C
T
2
C
2
N

= C
T
2
D
2
R

= D
T
2
D
2
C
2

q
1
a
11

q
1
( a
12
+v
x
)

q
1
a
13

q
1
a
14

q
1
a
15
0

q
2
0 0

q
2
0 0

q
3
0 0
0 0 0

q
4
0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0

D
2

q
1

b
2,11

q
1

b
2,12

q
1

b
2,13
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0

q
5
0 0
0

q
6
0
0 0

q
6

.
In (14), a
1i
and

b
2,1i
are the elements of the rst row of
matrices A
d
and B
2,d
from (12).
Assuming that the static output feedback controller u(k) =
Ky(k) is used, the discrete-time optimal LQ SOF problem is
to nd K that minimizes the LQ cost function J [22]. The
available outputs for SOF are the lateral acceleration, the roll
rate, and the yaw rate error, which is given as (15), shown
below. These signals are easily measured by sensors
y(k)

= Cx(k) =

a
y

. (15)
In this paper, a simple iterative algorithm proposed by
Rosinova et al. was used to nd the optimal K[23].
C. Discrete-Time LQ SOF Preview Controller Design for
Rollover Prevention
Let the preview time T
p
= p T
s
be a multiple of the sam-
pling time T
s
, and let w(k) be the vector containing all the
preview inputs at instant k, as given in (16), shown below.
The discrete-time dynamics equation of vector w(k) can be
represented as (17), shown below:
w(k) = [ w(k) w(k + 1) w(k + p) ]
T
(16)
w(k + 1) = w(k) +w(k + p + 1). (17)
In (17), and are dened as follows:

0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
0 0 0
.
.
.
1
0 0 0 0

,

=

0
0
.
.
.
0
1

. (18)
By augmenting (12) with (17), the augmented discrete-time
state-space equation is obtained as follows [18]:
_
x(k + 1)
w(k + 1)
_
=
_
A
d

0
_ _
x(k)
w(k)
_
+
_
0

_
w(k + p + 1) +
_
B
2,d
0
_
u(k) (19)
where

= [B
1,d
0 0].
By dening new state and matrices, (19) is converted into the
following equation:
x(k + 1) =

A x(k) +

B
1
w(k + p + 1) +

B
2
u(k) (20)
where
x(k)

=
_
x(k)
w(k)
_
,

A

=
_
A
d

0
_

B
1

=
_
0

_
,

B
2

=
_
B
2,d
.
0
_
.
Notice that matrix is stable, and therefore, the augmented
system (19) preserves the stabilizability and detectability prop-
erties of the original plant.
4220 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 60, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2011
Corresponding to the augmented system, the discrete-time
LQ cost function (14) should be modied as follows:

J =

k=1
_
x
T
(k)

Q x(k) + u
T
(k)

N
T
x(k)
+ x
T
(k)

N u(k) + u
T
(k)

R u(k)

(21)
where

Q

=
_
Q 0
0 0
_
,

N

=
_
N
0
_
,

R

= R.
The output equation (15) should also be modied as
y(k)

=

C x(k) =
_
C 0
0 I
_
x(k). (22)
The static output feedback control for the augmented system
is dened as
u(k) =

K y(k). (23)
The optimal LQ SOF preview control gain

K can be easily
computed by the algorithm proposed by Rosinova et al. [23].
D. Preview on Steering Input
Recent developments in sensor technologies make it possible
to obtain precise information on the states of a vehicle. For
example, it is possible to obtain vehicle position and heading
with an error of 10 cm using a differential GPS (DGPS). If
vehicle position and heading information obtained from DGPS
are combined with map information, a future navigation path of
a vehicle can be obtained. Based on this information and the as-
sumption that a driver wants to follow a future navigation path,
a drivers steering input can be estimated by model predictive
control [14]. Another method to obtain a future navigation path
is to use an automatic steering system for collision avoidance
[15]. In [15], a future path is obtained with a sigmoid function
to represent a path for collision avoidance. Based on this path,
the drivers steering input can be obtained with a driver model
[11]. In this paper, a drivers steering input acts as a disturbance,
as shown in (10). To obtain an LQ SOF preview controller,
the original system is augmented with a previewed disturbance
signal [20].
If the future navigation path is straight, the previewed steer-
ing input will be zero. Under this situation, the method using
DGPS and map information cannot preview abrupt steering
change such as a double-lane change maneuver because the
future navigation path is straight and it is assumed that a
driver wants to follow the future navigation path. If there is
abrupt steering change on a straight road, only the feedback
controlLQR or LQ SOFis activated because the previewed
steering inputs are zero.
III. SIMULATION
Linear controllers are designed based on the linear vehicle
model given in (12). The values of parameters in the linear
TABLE I
PARAMETERS AND VALUES OF THE SMALLSUV MODEL IN CARSIM
TABLE II
WEIGHTS IN THE LQ COST FUNCTION
vehicle model are referred from SmallSUV model in CarSim,
as given in Table I.
To avoid rollover in cornering situations, a vehicle should
follow the reference yaw rate
d
with a small lateral accelera-
tion a
y
. To follow the reference yaw rate, the yaw rate error e

should be reduced. To prevent rollover, the lateral acceleration

a
y
, roll angle , and roll rate

should be reduced. For this
purpose, weights q
2
, q
3
, and q
4
in (13) should be set to higher
values. If the weights on the roll angle and the roll rate are
highly emphasized for rollover prevention, the yaw rate error
increases due to the LTR, and this can cause a loss of the
maneuverability or the lateral stability [10]. To cope with this
problem, an electronic stability control (ESC) was adopted in
my previous work [10]. On the other hand, if the weight on
the yaw rate error is highly emphasized for the maneuverability
or the lateral stability, the roll angle cannot decrease [10].
Therefore, the LQ objective function given in this paper should
simultaneously consider these effects. For this reason, the roll
angle, the roll rate, and the yawrate error are highly emphasized
in the LQ objective function. The values of
i
for the weights
in the LQ cost function are given in Table II.
In the discrete-time control, the sampling time of a sensor
and a control input is set to 5 ms. In designing a preview
controller, the preview length of the steering input is set to
100 samples (=0.5 s).
To verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller, LQR,
LQ preview, LQ SOF, and the proposed LQ SOF preview
controller are compared in terms of the lateral acceleration, the
yaw rate error, and the roll angle. The steering input used in
this paper was the shhook maneuver with the maximum angle
of 270

. Hereafter, the legends LQR, LQ Preview, LQ SOF, and

LQ SOF Preview in the gures represent the controller designed
by LQR, LQ preview, LQ SOF, and the proposed LQ SOF
preview controller, respectively.
A. Linear System Analysis for the Designed Controllers
Fig. 2 shows the Bode plots that are drawn based on the
designed controllers. In these plots, the input is the steering
angle, and the outputs are the roll angle, the lateral acceleration,
and the yaw rate error. Since the frequency of the shhook
maneuver with the maximum steering angle of 270

is near
0.5 Hz, the frequency responses near 0.5 Hz should be checked
[24]. As shown in Fig. 2(b), each controller has slight effect
on the lateral acceleration although it decreases the lateral
YIM: DESIGN OF PREVIEW CONTROLLER FOR VEHICLE ROLLOVER PREVENTION 4221
Fig. 2. Bode plots from the steering input to each output. (a) Bode plot from

f
to . (b) Bode plot from
f
to a
y
. (c) Bode plot from
f
to e

.
acceleration over an uncontrolled vehicle. The preview con-
trollers LQ Preview, and LQ SOF Preview show the best perfor-
mance in controlling the roll angle, compared with LQR and LQ
SOF, as shown in Fig. 2(a). On the contrary, these controllers
show poor performance in reducing the yaw rate error, as shown
Fig. 3. Sensitivity function of LQR and LQ SOF.
in Fig. 2(c). These results indicate that the reduction in the
roll angle increases the yaw rate error. This is caused by the
fact that the yaw rate and the lateral velocity are reduced by
the controllers in order to decrease the lateral acceleration,
according to (4). In other words, the controllers make the
vehicle exhibit an understeer characteristic or a large yaw rate
error [19]. The preview control deepens this characteristic. The
large yaw rate error indicates that the controlled vehicle did not
sufciently follow the reference yaw rate. From these results,
it can be concluded that the preview controllers LQ Preview
and LQ SOF Preview concentrate its effort to reduce the lateral
acceleration and the roll angle at the expense of the increased
yaw rate error.
Fig. 3 shows the sensitivity function of LQR and LQ SOF.
As shown in this gure, the active suspension input of LQ SOF
is smaller than that of LQR near 0.5 Hz. On the contrary, the
yaw moment input of LQ SOF is larger than that of LQR. This
fact indicates that the difference in the active suspension input
generates the difference in the reduction of roll angle, as shown
in Fig. 3. The sensitivity functions of LQ Preview and LQ SOF
Preview are identical to those of LQR and LQ SOF because
the feedforward part cannot have an effect on the robustness
of the feedback part. On the other hand, noises in the preview
signal can have a signicant effect on the performance of the
controlled system. To cope with this problem, an observer-
based previewcontrol can be used [25]. However, that is beyond
the scope of this paper.
B. Rollover Prevention Control for CarSim Vehicle Model
To show the effectiveness of the proposed preview controller
in view of rollover prevention, simulations were performed on
a nonlinear multibody dynamic simulation software CarSim.
To simulate the designed controllers on CarSim, it is necessary
to distribute yaw moment M
B
to the four wheels. According to
the sign of M
B
, the braking pressure is applied to the front left
or front right wheel. For instance, if the sign of M
B
is positive,
the brake pressure is applied to the front left wheel. The given
yaw moment M
B
is transformed into the braking force F
x
as
F
x
=
2M
B
t
f
. (24)
4222 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 60, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2011
Fig. 4. Fishhook maneuver and its previewed steering input.
The relationship between the braking force F
x
and brake pres-
sure P
B
on a wheel is assumed as follows:
P
B
=
r
w
K
B
F
x
. (25)
With the designed controllers, simulations were performed
on the nonlinear vehicle model SmallSUV in CarSim. In the
simulation, the steering input is assumed to be known a priori
as the xed shhook maneuver with the maximum angle
max
of 270

, as shown in Fig. 4 [24]. In Fig. 4, the dotted line

represents the previewed steering input. This steering input is
assumed to be exactly computed by a model predictive control
[14]. The sampling rate of the previewed steering input is 50 ms
with the preview interval of 0.5 s. Hence, the preview length is
10. The initial speed of the vehicle is set to 80 km/h, and the
tireroad friction coefcient is set to 1.0. There are no speed
controls to maintain a constant speed. The actuators of the
brake and the active suspension are modeled as a rst-order
system with a time constant of 0.12 and 0.08, respectively.
The sampling rate of the control command, i.e., yaw moment
and active suspension force, and the sensor signals are set to
5 ms. The previewed signals on the drivers steering input are
interpolated to be tted to the sampling rate of the control
command, which is 5 ms. To prevent the locking of the brake,
the ABS provided in CarSim is used. The operating range of the
slip ratio in the ABS is between 0.05 and 0.15.
To check the rollover characteristic of the target vehicle,
simulations were performed under the shhook maneuver with
the maximum steering angle of 270

. Figs. 5 and 6 show the

simulation results for the uncontrolled vehicle for each initial
speed. As shown in Fig. 5(a), the lateral accelerations were
nearly the same, regardless of the initial speed. As a result,
the roll angles were nearly the same. This fact indicates that
lateral acceleration is hard to control. For this reason, previ-
ous works have concentrated on controlling roll motion under
the assumption that lateral acceleration is an uncontrollable
disturbance [9], [10]. The uncontrolled vehicle with an initial
speed of 80 km/h was drifted, as shown in Figs. 5(c) and 6.
This is a rear-sway phenomenon, which is caused by the fact
that the inner wheels are lifted in cornering due to large lateral
acceleration, and consequently, the lateral tire force of the rear
outer wheel becomes small, compared with that of the front
outer one [10]. According to a previous work, this tendency gets
Fig. 5. Simulation result of the uncontrolled vehicle for each initial speed.
(a) Lateral acceleration. (b) Roll angle. (c) Yaw rate.
Fig. 6. Trajectories of the uncontrolled vehicle for each initial speed.
more severe if an active suspension or an active antiroll bar is
used for the control of the roll motion [10]. From these facts,
it is obvious that active suspension plays a role in reducing
the roll motion under excessive lateral acceleration and that a
differential braking plays a role in preventing wheel lift.
Figs. 79 show the responses of the controlled vehicle for
each controller. As shown in Fig. 7(a)(c), the responses of the
roll angle, the yaw rate error, and the lateral acceleration were
expected fromthe Bode plot analysis in the previous section. As
shown in Fig. 7, there were slight differences in the responses
of the lateral acceleration, and the roll angle decreases as the
yaw rate error increases, just like the implication of the Bode
plots in Fig. 2.
YIM: DESIGN OF PREVIEW CONTROLLER FOR VEHICLE ROLLOVER PREVENTION 4223
Fig. 7. Responses of the SmallSUV model for each controller. (a) Roll
angle (in degrees). (b) Yaw rate error (in degrees per second). (c) Lateral
acceleration (m/s
2
).
As shown in Fig. 8(a), the preview controllers LQ Preview
and LQ SOF Preview generated larger active suspension inputs,
compared with LQR and LQ SOF. Due to the larger active sus-
pension inputs of the preview controllers, the roll angles were
signicantly reduced, compared with LQR and LQ SOF. From
these results, it can be concluded that the main advantage of the
preview control is the enhancement of roll control capability.
As shown in Fig. 8(b), the peak yaw moment inputs of the
preview controllers are larger than those of the LQR and LQ
SOF. This is caused by the increased yaw rate error of LQ
Preview and LQ SOF Preview, as pointed out in Fig. 7(b).
Fig. 8(c) shows the applied brake pressures of the designed
controllers. In these gures, the legends FL, FR, RL, and RR
represent the front left, front right, rear left, and rear right
wheels, respectively. As pointed out in Fig. 8(c), the brake
inputs of the preview controllers are larger than those of LQR
and LQ SOF, due to the large yaw moment inputs. Fig. 9 shows
the trajectories of the vehicles with each controller. As shown in
this gure, the controlled vehicles were not drifted because the
inner wheels were not lifted under the large lateral acceleration.
The vehicles with preview controllers LQ Preview and LQ SOF
Preview have a smaller cornering radius and a travel distance
than those of LQR and LQ SOF as the preview controllers made
the controlled vehicle exhibit understeer characteristic, which
generated a larger braking input.
Fig. 8. Control inputs in CarSim simulation for each controller in Fig. 3.
(a) Active suspension input. (b) Yaw moment input for each controller.
(c) Applied brake pressures of each controller.
C. Comparison of Rollover Prevention Controllers
For comparison, a rollover prevention controller was de-
signed by the LTR-based method proposed in [7]. This method
used the LTR as a measure of rollover threat and emergency
steering and braking control for rollover prevention. The LTR
R is simply dened as
R

=
F
R
z
F
L
z
F
R
z
+ F
L
z
. (26)
In (26), F
z,R
and F
z,L
are the sum of the right and left vertical
tire forces, respectively. The vertical tire forces can be easily
estimated using the longitudinal and lateral acceleration signals
[26]. If |R| is unity, the left or right wheels are lifted off, and
this is regarded as a rollover.
The method proposed in [7] uses emergency steering and
braking control for rollover prevention. Emergency steering
4224 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 60, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2011
Fig. 9. Vehicle trajectories of each controller based on the CarSim vehicle
model. (a) Trajectories of each controller. (b) Reference and real trajectories of
each controller.
control is to reduce the current steering angle by
R
, which is
calculated by

R
=
_
k
R
sgn(R) (R

R), |R| >

R
0, |R|

R.
(27)
Emergency braking control is to decelerate the vehicle as soon
as the LTR becomes critical. The required braking force is
calculated by
F
x,brake
=
_
0, |R|

R
m a
x,max
, |R| >

R.
(28)
This control was originated from the fact that the lateral accel-
eration decreases as the longitudinal velocity does, as given in
(4). In the method of [7], there are no roll controls for rollover
prevention and yaw motion control for lateral stability. In this
paper, an active suspension control is adopted for roll control.
The roll moment M
,R
that is required to stabilize the roll
motion is calculated with the lateral acceleration, as given in
M
,R
= m h
s
a
y
. (29)
The calculated roll moment is distributed to active suspensions
in left and right wheels.
Fig. 10. Responses of the SmallSUV model for each controller. (a) Roll angle
(in degrees). (b) Yaw rate (in degrees per second). (c) Yaw rate error (in degrees
per second). (d) Lateral acceleration (m/s
2
).
As presented, the LTR-based method given in [7] is quite
simple because it uses only longitudinal and lateral accel-
eration. Simulation was performed to compare the preview
controllers with the LTR-based method. Simulation condi-
tions were identical to those of the previous section. In (27)
and (28), the values of

R and k
R
were set to 0.6 and 1.0,
respectively.
Figs. 1012 show the responses of the controlled vehicle for
each controller. In these gures, the legend LTR indicates the
controller by the LTR-based method. As shown in Fig. 10, the
results of LTR are equivalent to those of preview controllers LQ
Preview and LQ SOF Preview except that the yaw rate error of
LTR is larger than those of the preview controllers. This was
caused by the fact that there are no yaw motion controls in the
LTR-based method. As shown in Fig. 11, the active suspension
and braking input of LTR is larger than those of the preview
YIM: DESIGN OF PREVIEW CONTROLLER FOR VEHICLE ROLLOVER PREVENTION 4225
Fig. 11. Control inputs in CarSim simulation for each controller. (a) Active
suspension input. (b) Applied brake pressures of each controller.
Fig. 12. Vehicle trajectories of each controller based on the CarSim vehicle
model.
controllers. This indicates that the LTR-based method requires
more control efforts to give an equivalent performance over the
preview controllers. As a result of the excessive braking of LTR,
the trajectory of LTR shows oversteer characteristic, as shown
in Fig. 12.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a preview controller design method for rollover
prevention has been proposed. Differential braking and ac-
tive suspension have been adopted as actuators. Under the
assumption that the steering input is previewable, the rollover
prevention controller has been designed with LQ SOF preview
control. From the Bode plot analysis, it has been determined
that the preview controller reduces the roll angle and the lateral
acceleration and increases the yaw rate error by making the
controlled vehicle exhibit understeer characteristics. From the
simulations in CarSim, it has been shown that the preview
controllers LQ Preview and LQ SOF Preview show superior
performance in preventing rollover by reducing the roll angle
and the lateral acceleration with the active suspension and the
differential braking at the expense of the increased yaw rate
error.
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Seongjin Yim received the B.S. degree in me-
chanical engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul,
Korea, in 1995 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
mechanical engineering from the Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea,
in 1997 and 2007, respectively.
From 2008 to 2010, he was a Postdoctoral Re-
searcher with the Brain Korea 21 (BK21) School
for Creative Engineering Design of Next-Generation
Mechanical and Aerospace Systems, Seoul National
University. He is currently a Research Professor with
Advanced Institutes of Convergence Technology, Seoul National University.
His research interests are robust control, vehicle rollover prevention, and unied
chassis control systems for hybrid and electric vehicles.