Land Vehicle Roll/Yaw Product of Inertia Measurement

Abstract

This paper focuses on the measurement of the roll/yaw product of inertia of a vehicle and describes a four-degree-of-freedom lumped-parameter ADAMS model used to simulate the test configuration. The measurement is performed by oscillating the vehicle in yaw and monitoring the resulting yaw acceleration and roll torque. The product of inertia is calculated from equations representing the motion of a rigid body relative to a nonmoving reference frame modified to accommodate for the misalignment of the vehicle center of gravity and the test apparatus yaw axis, and to approximate the compliant behavior between the test device and vehicle. The effects of the vehicle center of gravity misalignment from the test apparatus’ yaw axis and the compliance between the test vehicle and test device are studied. The measurement uncertainty is found using the law of propagation of uncertainty.