Driver assisted yaw rate control

A yaw rate controller was developed that utilizes the rear wheels of a vehicle to improve steering performance. The driver retains control over the front wheels, while a Model Reference Controller (MRC) commands the rear wheels. Experimental results were obtained by implementing the MRC on a scale vehicle. These results indicate significant performance improvement over proportional yaw-rate controller methods often used for rear-wheel control. Specifically, the MRC method was found to be less sensitive to model non-linearities such as actuator dynamics and steering linkage kinematics.