An automotive vehicle dynamics prototyping platform based on a remote control model car

The use of a modified remote control (RC) model car as a vehicle dynamics testing and development platform is detailed. Vehicle dynamics testing is an important aspect of automotive engineering and it plays a key role during the design and tuning of active safety control systems. Considering the fact that such tests are conducted at great expense, scaled model cars can potentially be used to help with the process to reduce the costs. With this view, we instrument and develop a standard electric RC model car into a vehicle dynamics testing platform. We then implement 2 representative active safety control applications based on this platform, namely an antilock brake system using open-loop pulse brake control and a roll-over prevention system utilizing lateral acceleration feedback. Both applications are presented with sensor measurements and the effectiveness of the suggested control algorithms are demonstrated.