Collecting and Processing Interaction Data between Tire and Ground by an Instrumented Vehicle

The basic performance of vehicles such as acceleration, deceleration, steering is determined by the interactive force generated between the tire and the ground, which is an important factor for running vehicles. A friction coefficient is one of the important indicators representing the interaction, and it determines the accelerating and braking performance. Also, the relationship between tire sideslip angle and the side force greatly affects the turning performance of the vehicle. These interactions are different depending on the ground such as roughness of the surface, dry or wet, etc. Especially for vehicles running off-paved roads, the interaction varies depending on the soil that the vehicle travels. It also changes greatly due to vegetation, roughness of the ground, and other factors. For these reasons, it is necessary to measure the condition of the road surface during traveling to clarify the characteristics of the tire and the ground. This interaction problem is also important, for controlling the vehicle in the case of unmanned operation. This report shows that valuable information of the interaction between a tire and the ground can be obtained by processing the data, which includes forces on tire, the tire rotational and travel velocities, and the posture angles of the tire, collected through the tire measurement system during the vehicle runs on actual grounds. The authors discuss the way of processing data and the feasibility of obtaining the interaction information using these data on actual grounds.