Hiromichi Nozaki

To provide good vehicle control in critical cornering, it is important to be able to sense the point of critical cornering. Even if the point of critical cornering is exceeded, it is possible to control the vehicle when drift control is good. As such, a compromise exists between the sensing of critical cornering and drift control. Experiments using a driving simulator were performed on different subjects to investigate this trade-off. It was found that the driver was able to sense the point of critical cornering easily from the change in body slip angle, and to control drift easily with a large body slip angle, in which the tire can attain a high cornering force. When the roll rigidity was low, however, drift control deteriorated although the sensing of critical cornering improved. Therefore, a moderate level of roll rigidity or roll rigidity control is desired to achieve a balance between these two factors.

The following has been understood for the change in the steer characteristic and the amount of perspiration in the drift cornering when not only visual information but also body sensory information is added. When body sensory information joins visual information as for the driver, it has been uuderstood that the amount of perspiration increases overall and can do the drift control continuing with a moderate tension. In the drive only of visual information, the driver comes to arrive easily at spin because the drift control is difficult. And, it has been understood that the amount of perspiration increases greatly compared with the case to give body sensory information, and becomes the one with a very high risk. Moreover, the driver can control an adequate drift compared with driving only visual information in feed back body sensory information on the roll angle to the steer. Therefore, the importance of the perception of the state of the vehicle by giving the driver moderate body sensory information was able to be confirmed, and a preferable direction as the vehicle was clarified.