On-Board Payload Identification for Commercial Vehicles

Roll over accidents of vehicles belong to the most dangerous vehicle accident scenarios on our roads. In particular, heavy commercial vehicles allow enormous changes of loads and often the drivers are confronted with unknown load conditions, e.g. container freight. This causes a persistent overturning hazard. Due to the varying load situations, the drivers of commercial trucks are therefore requested to permanently adapt their driving style in relation to the actual driving and roll dynamics of their vehicles, in order to provide sufficient driving safety. This paper therefore deals with methods to identify the payload parameters of air-sprung vehicles on different levels. Special attention is spent to examine the described onboard-identification methods for application to truck-semitrailer combinations. The online-identified relevant payload parameters are the load mass, the position of its centre of gravity and especially the height of its centre of gravity above ground. The aim of this paper is on the one hand to develop an identification approach to be able to provide more driver information about the actual overturning limit of the vehicle and on the other hand to deliver additional information about the current loading conditions of the vehicle as an input to any advanced driver assistance system or to enhanced vehicle-dynamics controllers, which take the payload height into consideration