Mech. Engr. Senior Design Project Idea

Hello all,
So seeing as there's alot of offroad experts and gear heads on this site, I figured I'd run my idea for my senior design project by you all to get any input. I'd much rather find out if I'm overlooking some huge problem here on the forum rather than once we actually build it.

So basically, we started with a few problems:
1) high profile vehicles (SUV's, trucks, etc.) are more susceptible to rollover from turning too hard at high speed
2) passengers can experience discomfort and apprehension during high speed turns even if the driver knows the limitations of his/her vehicle
3) high profile vehicles have limited high speed turning abilities due to high COG's and roll centers

Currently the only known solution to these problems (as far as i know) is the sway bar, which only limits vehicle roll in the opposite direction of the turn (you make a hard right, the sway bar prevents you from leaning too far to the left)
Gleaning inspiration from tilting trains and motorcyclists leaning into turns, I want to create a system that actively tilts the vehicle in the direction of the turn.





As of now, the system I have in mind can most readily be applied to UTV's and dune buggies which have more clearance for wheel travel and are a little more accepting of suspension adjustments. We will be testing it on an old SAE baja car so it's basically just a proof of concept at this point so it will always be active, as opposed to the ideal setup where it would only activate at higher speeds, where it would be most necessary.

Without revealing too much, this is roughly how the system would work. It will include a hydraulic pump that is directly connected to the steering rack (see second post) and four custom coil-overs with hydraulic compartments at the tops that can expand or contract, based on how much fluid is in them. The pump would basically transfer hydraulic fluid between the right and left coil-overs (two pumps for two sets of coil-overs. front and back), causing one to shorten and one to lengthen by the same amount based on the direction of the turn. For example, when you make a hard right, the system will pump hydraulic fluid from the right coil-over to the left one. This causes the right coil-over to shorten and the left coil-over to lengthen, causing the vehicle to lean to the right. The hydraulic compartments in the coil-overs will be entirely independent of the rest of the coil-over so they will not affect their performance, just their overall lengths.

Sorry if it seems like I'm keeping the cards too close to my chest. I'm just a little apprehensive about revealing too much in the off chance that I actually have a good idea

So like I said, any feedback is appreciated.
Thanks

 

UPDATE:

So we came up with a slight change to the design. I began to worry that having the coilovers linked to the steering in such a way would cause interference in the steering, i.e. if the left wheel goes over a bump, the resulting shock will travel through the fluid compartment at the top to the pump at the steering rack and will try to nudge the steering in one direction or the other. Basically, your suspension movement is creating another, undesired input signal to the steering.

So now, we're making the system completely independent of the steering and instead making it force based. We will try and have a simple bidirectional pump between the coilovers that will be controlled by a gyroscope. This will also eliminate the problem of the vehicle leaning too far during low speed turns. Because when you turn at a lower speed, there is less lateral force felt by the gyro. Basically, the faster and harder you turn, the more force the gyro will feel and the more it will lean the vehicle. The slower the turn, the less force the gyro feels and the less it will lean the vehicle.


any thoughts?

 

i think you made most peoples heads explode that read this..... mine did

 

First of all, just a quick correction. A high roll center would make the car roll less in a turn. The moment arm between the roll center and COG is what determines how much a vehicle will roll in a turn. So the lower the roll center, the more the vehicle leans.

Now,

This sounds like a fun project that will utilize most of your engineering classes. However I don't see this working full scale without making people sick I hope you can prove me wrong but that's just my opinion.

Keep us updated with progress though, it's cool to see someone thinking outside the box.

 

I'm assuming the pump will be electric? I'd recommend arduino for your micro-controller. I'm full retard with computers and I found the arduino platform very straight forward when I did my controls final project.

This will be quite the programming feat to make this work smoothly. I'm not sure how much help you'll have but this sounds more like a 2 year project, or maybe masters thesis than a senior project

 

Oops, right, so vehicles with high COG's and low roll centers. I always get those confused haha. Thanks.
I really hope it doesn't make people sick because then it would be doing the exact opposite of what we intended it to do haha. We drew inspiration from the tilting trains because they lean into turns to prevent things from moving around in the cabin and "counteract (passenger) discomfort" (caused by high speed turns) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_train

thanks for the input, guys!

 

Yah, we were thinking of going with an arduino, or maybe a raspberry pi, but that's probably overkill.
It's a one year project so I hope we're not in over our heads. My friends and I are pretty good with machining, so the coilovers shouldn't be too hard to make and we already have the car to put it on haha. So, yah, the programming will probably be the most daunting part. We have several friends who are very good at it though, so hopefully they'll be valuable resources.