Dolly Steering Controller for Enhancing Low- and High-Speed Performance of High Capacity Vehicles

Abstract

The adaptation of high capacity vehicles (HCVs) into existing commercial vehicle fleets have been considered a potential solution for reducing emissions, operational costs and infrastructure damages. However, due to increased length and number of articulations, there are challenges associated with HCVs with regard to their manoeuvrability at low-speeds and stability at high-speeds. This paper presents a Virtual Rigid Axle Command Steering control strategy for dolly steering, due to which both low- and high-speed performance of HCVs may be improved significantly compared to their conventional version with non-steered dolly. To demonstrate this, two HCVs, namely, A-double (tractor-semitrailer-dolly-semitrailer) and LHV-D (truck-dolly-semitrailer) are considered in this work.