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SAE TECHNICAL
PAPER SERIES

2007-01-0822

Vehicle-Trailer Handling Dynamics and Stability

Control an Engineering Review
Xiaodi Kang
Quantech Global Services

Weiwen Deng
General Motors Corporation

Reprinted From: Vehicle Dynamics & Simulation, 2007

(SP-2138)

2007 World Congress

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April 16-19, 2007
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2007-01-0822

Vehicle-Trailer Handling Dynamics and

Stability Control an Engineering Review
Xiaodi Kang
Quantech Global Services

Weiwen Deng
General Motors Corporation
Copyright 2007 SAE International

ABSTRACT
This paper presented an engineering review on the state
of the art in the research and development of vehicletrailer handling dynamics and stability controls. The
issues and potential technical solutions were identified in
various areas and the unique characteristics of vehicletrailer as a combined system were investigated and
compared to a single-unit vehicle system. Many
approaches taken in modeling, analysis, simulation and
testing were examined, and various control methods,
actuations and control implementations were evaluated.
As a result of this study, further research areas were also
identified. While it is important to maintain the stability of
a trailer, thus the stability of a vehicle-trailer combination,
it remains one of the major challenges in designing an
appropriate control law to balance effectively the
requirements
between
stability
and
handling
performance, which often set conflicting objectives.

INTRODUCTION
Vehicle-trailer system is generally referred to as
combination vehicle or articulated vehicle. Directional
dynamics and stability have been the primary concern for
vehicle-trailer combinations, which are known to have
some undesirable response properties when laden and
traveling at high speed or on low-friction surface [1]. The
handling performance of a vehicle when towing a trailer
can also be deteriorated due to the adverse influence
from the trailer in dynamics and kinematics. As two pivotconnected units, the trailer is more prone to instability
such as lateral swing or even jackknife, while the
vehicles issue is more related to the handling
performance since driver typically perceives only
vehicles dynamics. Compared to a single-unit vehicle,
the driver of vehicle-trailer combination has an additional
task of coping with trailer oscillation, possible instability
and path following to the vehicle. Both often pose
conflicting objectives in control design. The balance
between overall system stability and towing vehicle
handling performance often becomes a compromise due

to limited control channels available. In addition, a

vehicle-trailer combination is of higher order than a
single unit vehicle, and thus is a more complex plant,
which further makes the control design more
complicated [1].
The handling dynamics and stability characteristics of
various vehicle-trailer combinations have been
extensively investigated along with stability and safetyrelated issues [1-10]. The main design and operation
parameters related to the behaviors of vehicle-trailer
combinations have also been examined [11-23]. For
example, University of Michigan Transportation
Research Institute (UMTRI) conducted numerous
investigations on combination vehicle dynamics through
its comprehensive Phase I to Phase IV programs in the
1980s [13]. More recently Vehicle Research and Test
Center of NHTSA ((VRTC) has done considerable
investigations on vehicle-trailer system modeling, testing
and stability control, and have developed the National
Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) [2]. These
investigations have been, however, mainly focused on
heavy vehicle combinations, such as tractor and semitrailer systems, though [21] presented a review on
handling characteristics of car-trailer systems.
Despite extensive engineering activities found in the
literature on vehicle-trailer combinations, there are still
many areas which lack sufficient research and analysis,
which are mostly attributed to the complexities of vehicletrailer combinations and lack of appropriate control
design criteria. To help identify these areas and to
promote further engineering activities, this paper reviews
and summarizes the progress made in the areas of
modeling and simulation, analysis and synthesis on the
handling dynamics and stability controls for vehicle-trailer
combinations, and various control methods developed to
achieve desired performance and a proper balance of
some conflicting objectives. Unlike some reviews found
in the literature with focus on heavy commercial vehicle
combinations, the interest of this paper is mainly on light
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is inherent and sensitive to system parameters and

operating conditions such as traveling speed and
road surface friction. It may be excited by various
disturbances, such as side wind or driver abrupt
steering. Self excitation may also occur if the
system parameters are not properly designed
and/or the operating conditions are close to certain
critical states.

vehicle-trailer systems, such as car or light truck trailer

combinations.
This paper mainly consists of three sections. The first
section reviews the unique characteristics of vehicletrailer combination as compared to vehicle as a singleunit system. The dynamic characteristics are examined
in terms of some stability and safety related issues,
system configurations, operating conditions and drivervehicle interactions. Two different vehicle-trailer
configurations are distinguished in terms of hitch
coupling, critical modes, trailer variation and drivervehicle interactions. The second section presents
progress on vehicle-trailer dynamics analysis and
stability control. The fundamental impact of towing a
trailer on vehicle dynamics characteristics is illustrated by
comparing the root loci of a vehicle only and a vehicletrailer combination. Different control methods developed
are examined in terms of their control objectives and
approaches. As a result, some further research areas
are identified. The third section further highlights some
important observations from the review regarding
vehicle-trailer handling and stability control, in view of
control objectives, approaches, actuations and feasibility.
VEHICLE-TRAILER SYSTEM DYNAMICS
VEHICLE-TRAILER SYSTEM UNIQUE
CHARACTERISTICS
Stability
Unlike a single-unit vehicle (such as passenger car, van,
and sport utility vehicle), combination vehicle (such as
light vehicle-trailer system and tractor-trailer system),
has some unique characteristics in dynamics, handling,
stability and maneuverability due to its different
configurations. Although divergence stability, caused
mainly by oversteer, is common to both single-unit and
combination vehicles, oscillatory instability caused mainly
by trailer oscillation happens more often to combination
vehicles. The following are some unique characteristics
of vehicle-trailer combination [11-23].

Relatively smaller stability region and inferior

maneuverability as compared to a single-unit
vehicle, including inferior controllability and stability
in both yaw and roll modes at high speed, and
larger off-tracking at low speed.

Jackknifing and trailer swing phenomenon. This

instability represents the uncontrolled large relative
yaw motion between vehicle and trailer, and is one
of the most common causes of highway accidents.
It is caused by the loss of lateral force at vehicle
rear and/or trailer tire-road interfaces, mostly due to
hard braking.

Lateral oscillation of trailer or snaking. This kind of

instability represents the oscillation of trailer at high
speed, due to low system damping. This oscillation

Phase lag between vehicle and trailer motions due

to the separating distance. Inevitably, there is a
relatively large phase shift between driver input and
trailer response, which typically requires good
driving skill to cope with.

Rearward amplification (RWA). This is defined as

the ratio of the peak lateral acceleration at the
rearmost trailer's center of gravity to that of the lead
unit or towing vehicle during a lane-change
maneuver. It is particularly important for multi-unit
articulated vehicles, which usually exhibits a high
level of RWA, and may potentially lead to roll-over
during obstacle avoidance maneuvers.

Unstable backward motion.

System configurations and operating conditions

Compared to a single-unit vehicle, combination vehicle
has considerably more uncertainties and variable
configurations due to various types of hitch equipments,
trailer types and dimensions, and loading conditions. For
example, different trailers may be used for different
towing purposes, or the loading can be changed
frequently from time to time. These variable
configurations greatly influence the directional dynamics
and stability characteristics of vehicle-trailer system, thus
requiring more robust control design.
Driver-vehicle interaction
Unlike the driver of a single-unit vehicle, the driver of a
combination vehicle has an additional task of coping with
trailer oscillation and possible instability. When driving a
combination vehicle, however, the driver does not have
enough feedback information on the behavior of the
trailer, thus his/her actions (steering, braking, and
accelerating) mainly depend on the actual state of the
towing vehicle. Under certain critical circumstances, the
driver may not be able to provide suitable control on the
vehicle combination. As a consequence, this may lead to
system instability, such as jackknifing, trailer swing,
snaking, or even rollover. Thus, some high degree of
skill and quick reaction are required in operating a
combination vehicle. However, not many drivers possess
such skills.
TWO CLASSES OF VEHICLE-TRAILER SYSTEM
COMBINATIONS
Although vehicle-trailer system can have innumerable
variety of combinations, they may be simply categorized
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into two major configurations: light vehicle (car or light

truck)-trailer combinations and heavy vehicle-trailer
combinations or commercial vehicle combinations in
trucking industry (such as tractor and semi-trailer or full
trailer combinations).
Heavy vehicle-trailer combinations
A heavy vehicle-trailer system typically has the following
characteristics:

Hitch/fifth wheel couplings to resist roll motion of the

trailer

High CG (Center of Gravity) trailers, thus high

tendency to rollover

Operated by professional drivers

The widely used commercial tractor-trailer system is a

typical example. The trailer is generally an integral part of
the vehicle combination. Thus, the combination system is
considered as a whole, and the main concerns are on
roll stability and RWA for multi-unit combination due to
the excessive dimensions and CG heights. The
characteristics of commercially articulated vehicles for
highway transportation are usually assessed in terms of
some established performance measures, such as
handling quality of the vehicle combination, static rollover
threshold, dynamics rollover stability, yaw damping ratio,
friction demand of the drive-axle tires, lateral friction
utilization, low and high-speed off-tracking, and braking
performance. An example is given in [11]. In addition, a
lot of research work has been done in the Automatic
Highway System (AHS) programs for highway tracking
control [3, 5].
Light vehicle-trailer systems
Light vehicle-trailer combination, such as passenger cartrailer or light truck-trailer system, is essentially different
from commercial tractor-trailer systems in terms of
maneuverability and stability. Except for specifications,
there are many variables which affect the system, such
as drivers skill, the frequency of use, loading variations
and stability characteristics. A light vehicle-trailer
combination usually exhibits the following characteristics:

The standard coupling connection between vehicle

and trailer is a hitch, mostly a non-torque bearing
ball connection, thus allowing the trailer to rotate
easily in the yaw plane.
Many types of trailers exist, such as caravan, travel
trailer, boat trailer, sport utility and special purpose
trailers.
Usually, drivers skill is relatively lower compared to
the skill of a professional driver in operating a
commercial vehicle-trailer combination.

For a driver of a light vehicle-trailer system, he/she may

operate the system with or without the trailer. This sets a
requirement that a consistent handling behavior is
desirable between the single-unit vehicle and the
combination vehicle. For this, light vehicle-trailer system
characteristics should be evaluated in terms of both
towing vehicle only and vehicle-trailer combination.
VEHICLE-TRAILER SYSTEM DYNAMICS AND
STABILITY CONTROL
ANALYSIS ON HANDLING AND STABILITY
The handling and stability characteristics of various
combination vehicles have been extensively studied in
the past decades [24-52]. These studies have brought
about progress in analytical techniques, such as
simulations based on equations of motion, root locus
approach for stability judgment, and analysis of jackknife
behavior and trailer oscillations.
Two main approaches have been commonly employed.
The first one is the classical analytical approach based
on simple linear or linearized models for root locus
analysis and vehicle stability evaluation [24-34, 41-43,
47-52]. The most popular formulation is a three-DOF
(Degree Of Freedom) linearized tricycle model, which
was first proposed by Jindra [23] for analyzing a tractorsemi-trailer combination in the early 1960s. The trailer is
assumed to have only one axle and the system degrees
of freedom include towing vehicle lateral motion, towing
vehicle yaw motion and trailer yaw motion. This model is
an extension of the commonly used two-DOF linear
bicycle model for single-unit vehicles and is simple
enough to allow freedom in obtaining a fundamental
understanding of the dynamic behavior of the
combination vehicles using frequency response
approaches. Small steering angle and hitch angle are
usually assumed in this approach. A detailed derivation
of a three-DOF linearized vehicle-trailer system model
based on [23] is presented in [1]. The towing vehicle can
be a tractor for heavy vehicle combinations, or a car or
light truck for light vehicle-trailer combinations.
The second approach is through computer simulation
based on complex nonlinear-models incorporating tire
and suspension dynamics for evaluating system
response characteristics in time domain [35-40, 44-46].
In both approaches, parametric studies for evaluating the
influence of design parameters and operation conditions
on system dynamics and stability characteristics have
also been conducted [1].
Based on the well known two-DOF linear bicycle model,
there are essentially two poles or one pole-pair for a
single-unit vehicle or vehicle only, which are associated
with vehicle lateral and yaw motions. However, based on
the linearized tricycle model [1, 23], there are four poles

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or two pair-poles
combination.

for

three-axle

vehicle-trailer

Figure 1 presents a comparison of the root loci of a

vehicle only (based on two-DOF linear bicycle model)
and a vehicle-trailer combination (based on three-DOF
linearized tricycle model) to illustrate the difference in
dynamics characteristics of the towing vehicle with and
without a trailer [1], with the arrow showing increasing
vehicle speed. To simplify the description, only the root
loci with positive imaginary parts are shown in Figure 1.
The towing vehicle is a medium pickup truck with a total
weight of about 2500 kg, while the trailer has a total
weight of about 1000 kg.

STABILITY CONTROLS

7
Pole of vehicle only
Pole of vehicle-trailer (1)
Pole of vehicle-trailer (2)

Control objectives

Unlike a single-unit vehicle, such as passenger car or

light truck, where stability control has typically been
evaluated in terms of vehicle handling performance and
driver perception, vehicle-trailer combination has its firstorder requirement in maintaining its maneuverability and
stability, as illustrated in Figures 1 and 2.

5
Imaginary part (rad/s)

thus referred to as a vehicle-mode associated pole-pair,

while the other pole-pair (pole of vehicle-trailer (2),
shown in dash-dot line) is much closer to the imaginary
axis and characterized by considerably lower damping
ratio and natural frequency, which is referred to as a
trailer-mode related pole-pair. Due to the impact of the
trailer-related poles, the effective damping of the vehicletrailer system is considerably lower as compared to that
of the vehicle only, resulting in excessively oscillatory
response in both hitch angle and hitch angle rate,
especially under low-coefficient surface and/or at high
speed. In addition, due to the pole deviation caused by
the trailer, the towing vehicle also exhibits quite slower
response, as shown in Figure 2.

Increasing speed
1

0
-18

-16

-14

-12

-10
-8
Real part (rad/s)

-6

-4

-2

Figure 1: Root loci of a single-unit vehicle and a vehicle-trailer

combination as functions of vehicle speed

In contrast to a single-unit vehicle where the desired

handling characteristics have been well established in
the past, the desired behavior of a vehicle-trailer system
is not straightforward. Therefore, suitable performance
measures and evaluation criteria are yet to be defined,
although some intuitively general observations have
been made available based on the light vehicle-trailer
system unique characteristics [1, 53].
Control approaches

3
Vehicle sideslip

Vehicle yaw rate

Vehicle only
Vehicle-trailer

-5

In the past decades, the development of vehicle stabilitycontrol systems has shown significant progress in both
theoretical and practical fields [53-87]. The available
control systems for combination vehicles, however, are
mostly limited to braking performance enhancement and
for heavy vehicle-trailer combinations. Many active
devices have already existed with the aim to prevent or
inhibit jackknifing of tractor-trailer combinations through
differential braking control [82, 87]. Recently, steering
and differential braking controls have also been explored
for improving directional stability and track followability,
again, mostly for tractor-trailer systems [54-56, 58, 59,
61, 63, 65-68, 71, 73-75, 77, 80-83, 86, 87].

-10
0

0.5

1
1.5
Time (sec)

0.5

1
1.5
Time (sec)

Hitch angle

Hitch angle rate

0
-1

-0.4
-0.6

-2
-3

-0.2

1
2
Time (sec)

-0.8
0

2
Time (sec)

Figure 2: Step-input time responses of a single-unit vehicle and a

vehicle-trailer combination

The root-locus plots reveal a distinguishing distribution

pattern of the vehicle-trailer system poles at a relatively
high speed. One pole-pair of the vehicle-trailer
combination (pole of vehicle-trailer (1), shown in dashed
line) is quite comparable to that of the vehicle without
trailer (pole of vehicle only, shown in solid line) and is

The most relevant approaches for light vehicle-trailer

system dynamics and stability control are summarized in
the following subsections:

Direct yaw control (DYC) [54, 56, 57, 62, 63, 66-69,
72, 74, 78, 79]

The Direct Yaw Control, or DYC, is used to generate a

stabilizing yaw moment on vehicle and/or trailer by
intentional distribution of braking forces between left and
right wheels (differential braking or DB). The DYC is
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activated when the vehicle state variables, such as yaw

rate and side slip, exceed certain predetermined
thresholds, due to various reasons, such as
disturbances, low-coefficient surfaces or severe steering
maneuvers.
It is observed that when the oscillation of a trailer can be
kept small, the influence of the trailer on a vehicle is also
reduced and the handling of the whole vehicle-trailer
combination is effectively improved.
The main advantage of DYC is that it can be easily
implemented on combination vehicles equipped with
Anti-lock Braking System (ABS). There is no need for
additional actuators since nearly all existing hardware of
an ABS system is sufficient for operation with minor
software modifications only. The drawback is that
influencing the lateral dynamics by a differential braking
force distribution also affects the longitudinal dynamics,
thus reducing vehicles momentum. In addition, since the
braking activation is not related to the drivers intention, it
is considered to be obtrusive to the driver.

Vehicle rear wheel steering (RWS) [1, 53, 64-67, 70,

71, 73, 76]

The purpose of RWS is to stabilize the vehicle-trailer

combination by influencing trailer motion through hitch
coupling in order to stabilize the trailer. As a result, a
more stable trailer tends to reduce its impact on vehicle,
its lateral acceleration amplification tends to decrease,
and the rollover risk for the overall system tends to
reduce as well. Different steering control approaches
from the literature are summarized below.
 Open-loop RWS controller
Open loop RWS control is formulated such that the rear
wheel steer angle is proportional to vehicle front wheel
steer angle as a function of vehicle speed. This
proportional gain may be obtained based on either zero
vehicle sideslip angle in a steady-state turn, or desired
minimum trailer lateral acceleration.
The open-loop RWS controller can not only enhance
system lateral dynamics and stability at high speed, but
also improve vehicle-trailer system maneuverability at
low speed by reducing turning radius.
 Optimum RWS controller
The optimum RWS control uses state feedback of
vehicle-trailer system, such as vehicle sideslip and yaw
rate, hitch angle and hitch angle rate, to stabilize the
system and to achieve vehicle-like handling performance
by minimizing the difference of vehicle yaw rate and
sideslip between cases with and without towing a trailer.
The optimal control can be formulated with the
performance index defined below.

J = [ 2 + w1 ( dss ) 2 + w2 ( v v d ) 2 + w3 ( r rd ) 2 ]dt
0

(1)

where v, r, and denote vehicle lateral velocity, vehicle

yaw rate and hitch angle respectively, and denotes
hitch angle rate. vd and rd are the desired responses of
vehicle lateral speed and yaw rate, which can be derived
from the desired vehicle performance for vehicle alone to
preserve vehicle-like handling performance or driver's
perception. dss is the desired hitch angle as defined from
steady-state analysis [1]. wi (i=1, 2 and 3) is the
weighting factor.
The objective of the optimal control in Eq. (1) is to force
the vehicle-trailer system to track the desired handling
performance of the towing vehicle in order to preserve
drivers perception when driving the vehicle alone. In
addition, the control is to stabilize the trailer by
minimizing hitch angle rate and driving hitch angle to the
desired one. In the control design, it is assumed that all
states are available either through measurement or by
estimation.
While RWS control is effective in reducing trailer impact
on vehicle handling performance, some compromises
still exist. However, with both front and rear wheel
steering control, a much better vehicle-trailer
characteristics can be obtained in balancing both vehicle
handling and trailer stability requirements.
 Virtual model following RWS control
Similar to the optimum RWS control, virtual model
following RWS control is to have an actual vehicle-trailer
system track a virtual but desired vehicletrailer model.
This is derived by minimizing the error between two
systems in terms of all four state variables, namely
vehicle yaw rate and side slip, hitch angle and high angle
rate.
Simulations using a complex vehicle model for heavyvehicle combination show remarkable improvement
potentials for combination vehicles in various areas, such
as braking on split adhesion surfaces, in which the trailer
lateral oscillation can be drastically reduced.
The results also show that using information from both
units (towing vehicle and trailer) helps vehicle to retain
stability better than driver control. It is suggested that
information about the hitch angle and hitch angle rate
has to be integrated in the control algorithm to determine
the vehicle rear wheel steering angle.

Trailer steering control [80, 81, 84, 86]

This approach applies to trailers with steerable wheels.

Trailer steering control is usually formulated to stabilize
the trailer and reduce its negative influence on vehicle, to
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reduce trailer lateral acceleration and to mitigate rollover

risk for vehicle-trailer system.
 Trailer steering control based on root-locus
analysis
The objectives are typically to improve the directional
stability and handling, and to reduce trailer off-tracking.
The control law in determining trailer steering angle is
formulated as a function of hitch angle and hitch angle
rate, or as a function of vehicle front wheel steering
angle, based on root-locus analysis or based on zero
vehicle body side slip in a steady- state turn.
It is observed that hitch angle input alone does not have
a good effect on stabilization. However, the steering
control system with hitch angle rate input can not only
stabilize vehicle-trailer combination, but also improve
vehicle behavior such that it becomes closer to that of a
vehicle alone. Simulations and small scale model
experiments have been conducted, which confirmed the
analytical results.
 Trailer steering control design based on vector
following controller
By looking at the smoothness of locomotion, it is
desirable for trailer to be pulled straightforward in the
direction of its centerline. Therefore, the control objective
is to have the trailer centerline in line with the velocity
vector at the hitch point. Trailer steering angle is defined
as a function of vehicle front wheel steering angle and
speed.
It is shown that this kind of controller can greatly improve
the trailer response in both overshooting and damping
properties, and considerably reduce the off-tracking of
vehicle-trailer combination, which has been verified using
scale model experiments.

Other control approaches [75, 82, 83]

Two-loop full-state feedback control is another approach

using two control loops, a major loop and a minor loop.
The major loop with full-state feedback based on a
reference model is to improve system stability and
disturbance rejection, particularly for yaw rate response
enhancement, while the minor loop is to improve low
speed maneuverability and followability. Full-state
feedback, however, requires extensive instrumentation
or properly designed observers.
Other control approaches include vehicle suspension
control with controllable spring stiffness and/or bushing
compliance to affect the understeer behavior of vehicletrailer system. The control purpose is to achieve
consistent vehicle handling response characteristics
under different rear loading conditions during trailer
towing. In addition, several damping and motion
restraining mechanisms or passive devices have also
been introduced to stabilize the trailer, such as rotational
damper or torsional spring, or both, to control the motion

of the trailer. Although these approaches are much more

cost effective, they do not directly control the trailer, thus
are less effective in achieving desired handling and
stability performance.
REMAINING ISSUES
There are still some areas lacking sufficient information
from the literature, which include mechanical coupling
between vehicle and trailer and its impact on controller
design, reference model design for tracking desirable
and achievable handling and stability characteristics, and
various control implementation issues, in particular,
those related to state measurement or estimation for
state feedback control, control design and product
feasibility related to instrumentation of controller and
sensor(s) on vehicle or trailer, or both.
In addition, most of the available work on vehicle-trailer
control mainly focuses on design and analysis aspects
using computer simulations. There is a serious lack of
real vehicle test data and experimental verification
reported in the literature. This makes it difficult to assess
the true value of the reported results or to compare the
results achieved by different researches.
Furthermore, the feasibility of the various stability
controls, such as state estimations and control
implementation issues, needs to be further explored.
VEHICLE-TRAILER SYSTEM CONTROL STRATEGIES
CONTROL OBJECTIVES
For a light vehicle-trailer combination, the characteristics
of vehicle alone are considered to be the benchmark of
the vehicle-trailer system for a consistent yet desirable
vehicle-like handling performance. Therefore, it is
desirable that the vehicle have an optimal dynamics
behavior for both with and without trailer cases, that is,
good handling performance and trailer towing stability.
Thus the control objective can be defined to stabilize the
system without significantly changing the characteristics
of vehicle-alone to maintain consistent and predictable
vehicle handling quality to drivers. In addition, similar to
single-unit vehicles, other general control objectives
should also be considered to enhance directional stability
and controllability for vehicle-trailer combination, and to
maintain desired steering response characteristics
against changes in system parameters and operating
conditions.
THREE POSSIBLE APPROACHES

Adapt a control system for a vehicle in such a way

that it improves system dynamic performance with
trailer stabilization. No control system is equipped on
the trailer. It seems favorable to have all control
devices and sensors mounted on the towing vehicle
only. However, in order to enhance stability of
combined system while preserving the vehicle-like
handling performance, it is necessary to have some
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information available from the trailer, such as trailer

yaw rate or hitch angle rate. Otherwise, some tradeoff becomes unavoidable.

Provide a separate trailer control system with its own

sensor(s) such that the trailer can be stabilized by
the controller and the negative influence from trailer
to vehicle be minimized. With this approach, the
trailer with the controller can be attached to any
vehicle without modification or instrumentation of the
vehicle. However, the additional hardware will make
the trailer more expensive, and it is difficult to set the
vehicle power to the actuator on the trailer. In
addition, without synchronization between vehicle
and trailer control systems, an optimum performance
may not be achievable.
Mount control devices on both vehicle and trailer.
This control configuration can achieve the best
overall performance in stabilizing trailer and
maintaining vehicle-like handling performance. Some
tuning between the two units with respect to vehicletrailer parameters and other configuration variations
is necessary to take full advantage of this control
configuration.

CONTROL ACTUATIONS
Similar to a single-unit vehicle system, two major control
actuation systems can be developed to influence the
dynamic behavior of a vehicle-trailer system, namely
augmented steering and differential braking. Steering
control can effectively influence the lateral dynamics
nearly without restrictions on the longitudinal dynamics.
However, this requires a costly actuator. For differential
braking control, nearly all existing hardware of an ABS
system is sufficient for operation with minor software
modifications. While this control can effectively affect the
lateral dynamics, it may impact the longitudinal dynamics
and driver perception, such as slowing down the vehicletrailer combination or adding intrusion to drivers.

heavy tractor-trailer combination and light vehicle (car or

light-truck)-trailer combination are different in terms of
hitch coupling mechanism and critical modes, trailer
variation as well as driver-vehicle interactions, and thus
pose considerably different dynamics and control
requirements.
Review of progress on vehicle-trailer dynamics analysis
and stability control shows that the approach using linear
modeling and analysis is common and effective in the
analysis of system characteristics and control design for
vehicle-trailer combination. Unlike the control design for
a single-unit vehicle, maintaining stability of trailer and
overall vehicle-trailer combination is found to be one of
the foremost important tasks. For a light vehicle-trailer
combination, it is further desirable that the vehicle have
an optimal dynamics behavior for both with and without
trailer cases. Thus the control objective can be defined to
stabilize the system without significantly changing the
characteristics of vehicle alone to maintain consistent
and predictable vehicle handling quality to drivers.
However, it remains one of the major challenges in
designing appropriate control laws to effectively balance
the requirements between stability and handling, which
often set conflicting objectives. It is also found that some
areas are still lack of sufficient information from the
literature, such as mechanical coupling between vehicle
and trailer and its impact on controller design, reference
model design for tracking desirable and achievable
handling and stability characteristics, and various control
implementation issues.
Similar to a single-unit vehicle system, two major control
actuation systems may be employed to influence the
dynamic behavior of a vehicle-trailer system: augmented
steering and differential braking, each having its
advantages and drawbacks. The most cost-effective
approaches may consist of using some kind of controlled
or smart components and passive subsystems to affect
the dynamics behavior of the towing vehicle or to
stabilize the trailer so as to maintain consistent vehicle
handling performance with or without towing a trailer.

Other less effective but more cost-effective approaches

may consist of using some kind of controlled or smart
components and passive systems, such as adjustable
suspension spring and bushing compliance to affect the
understeer behavior of the vehicle-trailer system in order
to maintain consistent vehicle handling performance,
rotational damper or torsional spring or both to stabilize
the trailer.
CONCLUSIONS
Compared with a single unit vehicle system, a vehicletrailer
combination
exhibits
certain
unique
characteristics, such as smaller stability region and
inferior maneuverability, jackknifing and trailer swing,
trailer oscillation and reward motion amplification; widely
varying system configurations and operating conditions
as well as complicated driver-vehicle interactions.Two
distinguishing vehicle-trailer configurations, namely
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