2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia
Application of an Active Anti-roll Bar System for
Enhancing Vehicle Ride and Handling
Noraishikin Zulkarnain, Fitrian Imaduddin, Hairi Zamzuri*, Saiful Amri Mazlan
UTM Proton Active Safety Laboratory,
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
noraishikin2@live.utm.my, ifitrian2@live.utm.my, hairi@ic.utm.my, amri@ic.utm.my
Abstract—More papers are written about Active Anti-roll bars
(AARB) in automotive and mechanical field. These systems are
usually designed for vehicles to change the roll stiffness of the
vehicle, thus preventing a potential roll-over. In this present
paper, the use of AARB will be analysed from two different
perspectives in ride and handling. First, this paper proposed the
basic vehicle dynamic modeling with four DOF (degree of
freedom) on half car model are described that show, why and
how it is possible to control the handling and ride comfort of the
car, with the external forces on the front anti-roll bar. Basically,
this paper is focused on understanding the vehicle dynamic
behaviour under the influence and the effects of anti-roll bar
mechanism. Simulated tests are presented, that shows how the
characteristics of the body roll angle and roll rate responses by
using MATLAB/SIMULINK software. By simulation analysis,
the design model is validity and the performance under control of
PID controller is achieved. Finally, some basic conclusions are
drawn about the applicability of the possible control strategies
will be investigated for such system in the future.
Keywords-active anti-roll bar; ride comfort; handling; control
strategies
I. INTRODUCTION
Ride and handling are one of the key attributes in the
vehicle, which communicate directly to the customer
perception of satisfaction. Unfortunately, there are trade-offs
between these attributes and it is a challenge for automotive
engineer to make a vehicle with a good ride and a good
handling at the same time. Many studies have been done on
active system to tackle these tradeoffs. Some prefer to develop
active suspension while some others prefer to focus on
advancing the anti-roll bar. However, from manufacturer’s
point of view, cost is the key factor. In this factor, anti-roll bar
system has the advantage since it can provide solution to ride
and handling tradeoffs with lower cost compared to active
suspension.
Basically, the passive anti-roll bar has the advantages to
reduce the body roll acceleration and roll angle during single
wheel lifting and cornering maneuver. By reducing body roll
motion, the driving safety and handling stability will be highly
improved [1]. However, the passive anti-roll bar also has
* is the corresponding author and the work are supported by Ministry of
Higher Education Malaysia under Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Proton
Sdn Bhd. (vote no: 2540.02H62)
.
978-1-4673-4617-7/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
disadvantages. During cornering maneuver, anti-roll bar will
transfer vertical forces of one side of suspension to the other
side and therefore creating moment against lateral force.
Unfortunately, during straight line driving, lateral forces
induced by road irregularities will also get the same effect as
the one induced by cornering maneuver and therefore
deteriorates ride comfort. For that reason, an active anti-roll
bar is developed to improve the disadvantages of passive anti-
roll bar while at the same time augmenting ride comfort and
handling stability with comparatively lower cost and power
consumption than active suspension.
Various solutions have been studied to compromise the
trade-offs between ride and handling. These solutions include
passive suspension systems, semi-active suspension systems,
active suspension systems, and anti-roll bar. But, anti-roll bar
recently has become very popular for researchers to tackle the
issues of trade-offs between ride and handling. P. H. Cronjé
and P. S. Els [2] have studied the effect of the active anti-roll
bar on ride comfort and handling of an off-road vehicle. This
paper also analyzed the use of an active anti-roll bar as a
means of improving the handling of an off-road vehicle
without sacrificing the ride comfort. The paper from
S.Gosselin-Brisson [3] has demonstrated the design of an
active ARB controller to improve not only vehicle stability but
also for passenger comfort. In order to evaluate the
performance of the active ARB system, it was benchmarked
with a common suspension with and without a passive ARB.
It can be seen that most of research in AARB system are
developed to contribute in vehicle Active Roll Control (ARC)
system. However, there are distinctions that can be made in
ARC systems according to the actuator types and the actuator
locations [4]. The most popular actuator in ARC and
particularly in ARB is hydro pneumatic and hydraulic system
[5]. However, the obvious drawback of these actuators are
manufacturing cost, power consumption and its slow
responses on various roads and steering inputs. As an
alternative, Kim and Lee developed an ARC system using
lateral acceleration and roll rate feedback in an electrical
actuating system [6]. To enhance the control performance in
the transient region, they proposed a hybrid roll control system
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 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia

that takes advantage of the variable damper and also

developed an electric active stabilizer suspension system as a ଵ
ߙி ൎ ߜ െ ൫ܸ௬ ൅ ܽ߰ሶ൯ (6)
௏ೣ
technology for controlling vehicle body roll [7]. Particularly, ଵ
they obtained requirements for the electric ARC actuator from ߙோ ൎ െ ൫ܸ௬ െ ܾ߰ሶ൯(7)
௏ೣ
extensive study on real world driving patterns. They also
showed that significant energy saving can be achieved by
adopting a strain wave gearing mechanism for the reduction
gear and by exploiting its hysteresis property in an electric
actuation system. The system consist active stabilizer
actuators that use electric motors and reduction gears to
control roll and various sensors that detect the vehicle’s
running state.

Besides that, an active anti-roll bar system called Dynamic

Drive has developed by BMW [8]. This system significantly
reduces roll angle during cornering and consists of a hydraulic
valve block with integrated sensors, a hydraulic pump coupled
to the power steering pump, a lateral acceleration sensor, a
control unit, several hydraulic lines, and two active anti-roll
bars with rotating hydraulic actuators.
Figure 1. Single-track model, showing the combined front and rear tire
This paper will focus on understanding the vehicle dynamic forces, the steering angle , the yaw rate, and the vehicle sideslip angle [9].
behaviour under the influence of anti-roll bar mechanism. In
order to simulate the vehicle behaviour, a linear four degrees The input to the system is steering angle,ߜǡwhile the
half car model is developed as well as anti-roll bar model. The outputs of the system are lateral velocity,ܸ௬ , yaw rate, ߰ሶ, and
objective of this paper is to show that the active anti-roll bar is
roll rate, ‫׎‬ሶ. The transfer function equations for single track
able to significantly improve the vehicle dynamic behaviour
model with roll dynamics system is written as follows:
under several roll induced maneuvers.

II. THE VEHICLE MODEL Lateral acceleration:

஼ ଵ ஼ ଵ
In this section, a linear four degrees of freedom half car ܸ௬ሶ = ೑ ቂߜ െ ൫ܸ௬ ൅ ܽ߰ሶ൯ቃ+ ೝ ቂെ ൫ܸ௬ െ ܾ߰ሶ൯ቃ െ ܸ௫ሶ ߰ሶ (8)
௠ ௏ೣ ௠ ௏ೣ
model has developed. The model is based on single track
model with roll dynamics developed from the bicycle model Yaw acceleration:
integrated with half car model. ௔஼ ଵ ௕஼ ଵ
߰ሷ ൌ ೑ ቂߜ െ ൫ܸ௬ ൅ ܽ߰ሶ൯ቃ െ ೝ ቂെ ൫ܸ௬ െ ܾ߰ሶ൯ቃ (9)
ூ೥೥ ௏ೣ ூ೥೥ ௏ೣ

A. The linear single-track model with roll dynamics Roll acceleration of single track model:
The simplest kinematic vehicle model is the linear single- ௠௛ ஼ ‫׎‬ሶ ௄ ‫׎‬
track model, also known as the bicycle model, which is ‫׎‬ሷ ൌ ൫ܸ௬ሶ ൅ ܸ௫ ߰ሶ൯ െ ೜ െ ೜ (10)
ூೣೣ ூೣೣ ூೣೣ
obtained by approximating the front and rear pairs of wheels
as single wheels. The model is illustrated in Fig. 1. Assuming
B. A half car model of a vehicle
that the steering angle, ߜǡ is small, the equations of motion are
given by [9]:

m൫ܸ௬ሶ ൅ ܸ௫ሶ ߰ሶ൯ = ‫ܨ‬௬ಷ ൅ ‫ܨ‬௬ೃ (1)

‫ܫ‬௭௭ ߰ሷ = ܽ‫ܨ‬௬ಷ െ ܾ‫ܨ‬௬ೃ (2)
‫ܫ‬௫௫ ߶ሷ +‫ܥ‬௤ ‫׎‬ሶ+ ‫ܭ‬௤ ‫ = ׎‬mh൫ܸ௬ሶ ൅ ܸ௫ ߰ሶ൯ (3)
‫ܨ‬௬ಷ ൎ ‫ܥ‬௙ ߙி (4)
‫ܨ‬௬ೃ ൎ ‫ܥ‬௥ ߙோ (5)

Where ୷ూ and ୷౎ are the combined front and rear lateral

tire forces, ‫ܥ‬௙ is the front cornering stiffness and ‫ܥ‬௥ is the rear
cornering stiffness. The slip angles of the front, ߙி ǡ and rear
wheels, ߙோ ǡcan be approximated as:
Figure 2. Half car model of a vehicle from front view.

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 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia

The half car model explains the relation between body active ARB are represent as below. The response outputs are
bounce, ‫ݔ‬ǡ body roll angle, ‫׎‬ǡ left and right wheels hop and the same between these three ARB systems but the inputs are
road excitations. Then, the equations of motions for this model different.
are combined with the single track model with roll dynamics
to design the four degree of freedoms vehicle dynamic model ARB System:
as follow:
‫ݔ‬ሷ (t) = ‫ܣ‬஺ோ஻ x(t) + ‫ܤ‬஺ோ஻ u(t) (18)
Body vertical acceleration:
y(t) = ‫ܥ‬஺ோ஻ x(t) + ‫ܦ‬஺ோ஻ u(t) (19)
െʹܿ‫ݔ‬ሶ ܿ‫ݔ‬ሶଵ ܿ‫ݔ‬ሶ ଶ ܿሺܾଵ െ ܾଶ ሻ ʹ݇‫ݔ‬
‫ݔ‬ሷ ൌ ൅ ൅ ൅ ‫׎‬ሶ െ
݉ ݉ ݉ ݉ ݉ x(t) = ሾ‫ݔ‬ ‫ݔ‬ଵ ‫ݔ‬ଶ ‫ݔ‬ሶ ‫ݔ‬ሶଵ ‫ݔ‬ሶ ଶ ‫׎‬ ‫׎‬ሶܸ௬  ߰ሶሿ  (20)
௞௫భ ௞௫మ ௞ሺ௕భ ି௕మ ሻ
൅ ൅ െ ‫׎‬ (11)
௠ ௠ ௠ The input u(t) for the system connected without ARB and with
passive ARB as follow:
Left wheel vertical acceleration:
݇‫ ݔ‬ሺ݇ ൅ ݇௧ ሻ ܿ‫ݔ‬ሶ ܿ‫ݔ‬ሶଵ ܾ݇ଵ u(t) = ሾ‫ݕ‬ଵ ‫ݕ‬ଶ ߜሿ (21)
‫ݔ‬ሷଵ ൌ െ ‫ݔ‬ଵ ൅ െ ൅ ‫׎‬
݉ଵ ݉ଵ ݉ଵ ݉ଵ ݉ଵ
௖௕ ௞
൅ ௠ భ ‫׎‬ሶ ൅ ௠೟ ‫ݕ‬ଵ ൅  ‫݂ܨ‬ (12) While, the input u(t) for the system connected with AARB as
భ భ
follow:
Right wheel vertical acceleration:
݇‫ ݔ‬ሺ݇ ൅ ݇௧ሻ ܿ ܿଶ ܾ݇ଶ ܾܿଶ u(t) = ሾ‫ݕ‬ଵ ‫ݕ‬ଶ ܶ஺௙ ߜሿ (22)
‫ݔ‬ሷ ଶ ൌ െ ‫ݔ‬ଶ ൅ െ െ ‫׎‬െ ‫׎‬ሶ
݉ଶ ݉ଶ ݉ଶ ݉ଶ ݉ଶ ݉ଶ
௞௧ The inputs of the system can be shown from the equation
൅ ௠ ‫ݕ‬ଶ െ  ‫( ݂ܨ‬13)
మ (21) and (22). The systems that connected without ARB and
with passive ARB consist of three inputs which are road
Roll acceleration of single track model and half car model: excitation on left wheel,‫ݕ‬ଵ , road excitation on right wheel, ‫ݕ‬ଶ ,
ሺܾଵ െ ܾଶ ሻ݇‫ ݔ‬ሺܾଵ ݇‫ݔ‬ଵ ሻ ሺܾଶ ݇‫ݔ‬ଶ ሻ ܿሺܾଵ െ ܾଶ ሻ and steering angle, ߜ. Meanwhile, for the system connected
‫׎‬ሷ ൌ െ ൅ െ െ
‫ܫ‬௫ ‫ܫ‬௫ ‫ܫ‬௫ ‫ܫ‬௫ with active ARB consists of four inputs which are two
ܾଵ ܿଵ ܾଶ ܿଶ ሺܾ݇ଵଶ ൅ ܾ݇ଶଶ ሻ ܿሺܾଵଶ ൅ ܾଶଶ ሻ different road motions, ‫ݕ‬ଵ ,‫ݕ‬ଶ , steering angle, ߜ , and active
൅ െ െ ‫ ׎‬െ ‫׎‬ሶ ൅  ݁‫ܨ‬௙ ARB torque, ܶ஺௙ .
‫ܫ‬௫ ݉ଵ ‫ܫ‬௫ ‫ܫ‬௫
(14)
Furthermore, the outputs of the system are body deflection,
x, right wheel deflection, ‫ݔ‬ଵ , left wheel deflection, ‫ݔ‬ଶ , roll
C. Anti-roll Bar System angle, ‫׎‬, roll rate, ‫׎‬ሶ, lateral velocity, ܸ௬ and yaw rate, ߰ሶ .
Active ARB used active force with controller in which can However, in this paper only roll angle, ‫׎‬, and roll rate, ‫׎‬ሶ, will
actively generate the torque at the center of the bar, ܶ஺௙ . The be discussed in the forthcoming section.
reaction force of active ARB can be expressed as an equation
(15). While, the passive ARB exerts the reaction force of
ARB, ‫ܨ‬௙ , by spring stiffness of the bar,݇ோ , to reduce the body III. SIMULATION SETUP
roll angle. The equation of reaction force for passive ARB is To evaluate the vehicle dynamic behavior and the
shown in equation (16). Lastly, the equation (17) is the ARB effectiveness of both passive and active ARB system to
reaction force of the vehicle model of a normal suspension cancel-out roll movement under various roll induced
without the ARB that equal to zero. maneuvers, numerical evaluation will be conducted using
MATLAB/SIMULINK. Roll induction that will be used as a
்ಲ೑ disturbance in this paper will be divided into two parts, road
‫ܨ‬௙ =  (15)
௅ input disturbance and steering input disturbance. Furthermore,
௑మ ି௑భ ାௐ‫׎‬
although the model could provide several outputs of the
‫ܨ‬௙ =݇ோ (16) system such as body deflection, right wheel deflection, left
௅
wheel deflection, roll angle, roll rate, lateral velocity and yaw
‫ܨ‬௙ ൌ Ͳ (17) rate, however, only roll angle and roll rate will be discussed in
the forthcoming section.

D. State space representation form

In order to perform the analysis and control design for the
system, the equations are rearranged in the state-space form.
The state space equations of linear four degrees of freedom
half car model by connected without ARB, passive ARB and
A. The sytem connected to without ARB and Passive ARB
Fig. 3 shows the block diagram for the vehicle system
connected without ARB and with passive ARB. The speed
bump test is chosen as a road input disturbance and is attached

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 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia

only to the left wheel hop. Meanwhile, the fishhook maneuver TABLE I. FOUR DEGREES OF FREEDOM HALF CAR MODEL PARAMETERS
is chosen as an input of steering. As a comparison, the same Parameters
Symbol
testing condition also attached to the vehicle system that is Items Values units
connected to the proposed active ARB as shown in Fig. 4. c Suspension damping of the car 4000 N/m
k Suspension stiffness of the car 10000 N/m
m Mass of half car body 715 Kg
„ଵ Length from C.G to the right wheel
0.7 m
suspension
„ଶ Length from C.G to the left wheel
0.75 m
suspension
୲ Tire stiffness 200000 N/m
ଵ Mass of left wheel 53 Kg
ଶ Mass of right wheel 53 Kg
୶ Longitudinal mass moment of
820 ‰ଶ
inertia
୤ Front cornering stiffness 18000 N/rad
୰ Rear cornering stiffness 47000 N/rad
୶ Forward velocity 100 Km/h
a Distance from the front wheel to
1.1 m
the C.G
„ Distance from the rear wheel to the
1.4 m
C.G
୸୸ Moment of inertia around the z axis 2430 ‰ଶ
h Height of C.G above roll axis 0.36 m
୶୶ Moment of inertia around the x axis 602.822 ‰ଶ
୯ Damping coefficient 3495.7 N/m
୯ Spring coefficient 56957 N/m
Figure 3. Block diagram of without ARB and passive ARB system. ୖ Torsional stiffness 10000 N/rad
L Length of stabilizer arm 0.4 m
B. The sytem connected to active ARB with control design  Length of stabilizer bar 1.4 m
g Gravitional acceleration 9.81 • ଶ
The proposed system in the active ARB includes controller e Mounting location of stabilizer bar 0.325 m
in the layout. In this case, PID controller is used. This
controller is designed and tuned to generate the input of torque
in order to active ARB system. The control block diagram is IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
shown in Fig. 4.
A feedback control structure for active ARB system has
been designed and shown in the previous section. A PID
controller has been designed and tuned to realize the
performance corresponding to a torque which is improved the
vehicle body roll. The responses will be then compared with
its counterparts. In the results that will be shown in this
section, a speed bump test result is used to evaluate the ride
comfort while a fishhook test maneuver result is used to
evaluate the handling performance of the car.

A. Effects of the Anti-roll Bar sytem for roll angle response

Figure 4. Block diagram of active ARB system.
Fig. 5 and 6 show the vehicle roll angle response for the
different systems in the case of handling and ride test. It can
be seen in these two figures, the roll angle response is highly
reduced for active ARB system. For the handling test, there
was improvement in maximum body roll angle between the
system without ARB and with active ARB of 93%. While, for
the ride test an improvement is around 83%. Therefore, by
using active ARB, the performance of roll angle in handling
and ride test are better and the rollover of vehicle is more
decreased compare with the system connected to conventional
ARB.

Table 1 below shows the parameters for four degrees of

freedom half car model that is used in the simulation.

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 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia
Figure 5. Effect of roll angle in handling test.
Figure 6. Effect of roll angle in ride test.
B. Effects of the Anti-roll Bar system for roll rate response
Next, in Fig. 7 and 8 also show the response signals of roll
rate for the different systems in the case of ride and handling
test. From these simulations, the active ARB shows that 80%
improvement in maximum body roll over the passive and
without ARB for speed bump and fishhook test. Thus, the
response is more better by connected the system with active
ARB.
264
Figure 7. Effect of roll rate in ride test.
Figure 8. Effect of roll rate in handling test
It can be seen in Fig. 5, 6, 7 and 8 that active ARB is better
for handling and ride test compared between without and
passive ARB. Therefore, from these simulations results, the
vehicle that use active ARB will reduce the trade-off gap
between ride comfort and improve handling at the same time.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper compares the performance of different types of
suspension which are the system without ARB, with passive
ARB and with an active ARB. A four DOF vehicle model has
been used to model the vehicle suspension system. The
MATLAB/SIMULINK environment of the simulation model
on the Anti-roll designs for four DOF vehicle dynamic models
is used to simulate the proposed control system of an active
ARB and its counterparts. According to the simulation results,
 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science & Engineering Research (CHUSER 2012), December 3-4, 2012, Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia
the performance of the proposed system is capable to achieve
better performance than its counterparts in terms of roll angle
and roll rate reduction during roll induced maneuver. For
future work, more advanced control structure and control
design will be investigated under various maneuver in order to
improve the vehicle stability and would benefit not only
handling aspect of the vehicle but also contribute toward
vehicle ride comfort.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is fully supported by ministry of higher
Education Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia under
GUP research grant (vote no: 2540.02H62). The work is also
supported by Proton Sdn. Bhd.
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