Global chassis control by sensing forces/moments at the wheels

The paper presents the expected improvement on the active safety of road vehicles deriving from the real time measurement of forces and moments at the wheels. Many researches in the literature attempt to find devices able to measure accurately the forces and the moments at the wheels of road vehicles. A six-components measuring wheel developed and patented at the Politecnico di Milano is described. The active safety of road vehicles is mainly related to longitudinal motions (braking, traction control) and lateral motions (yaw moment control). Up-to date control strategies are described in the paper. Weak points of the todays controls are highlighted in the paper. New controls are presented, aiming to use all of the information available and provided by the six-axis measuring wheels. It is envisaged, a signicant improvement of the vehicle active safety by sensing the forces at the wheels.