Presentation date: 2006-06-14
Graduation date: 2007
A brake-based wheel speed control system for a rear-wheel drive vehicle is developed and simulated in this thesis. The OSU mini-Baja vehicle team will use this study in the development and implementation of a similar system for upcoming competitions. Vehicle submittals must differ to a specified degree from previous year’s designs, according to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) competition guidelines. The OSU team intends to satisfy this requirement by implementing an electronic traction control system, hereafter referred to as the Smart Brake System (SBS). The SBS design will not only enable OSU to satisfy SAE guidelines, but will reduce undesired drive torque distribution to the wheels. The development of SBS is based on a rear-wheel drive, open-differential vehicle and turning dynamics data gathered by the 2004 OSU Baja team. The vehicle model and the control system are designed and simulated using MatLab.