Copyright © 2012 Ren Yuan-Yuan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Plenty of experiments and data analysis of vehicle track type in road curved section show that the deviation and the crossing characteristics of vehicle track paths are directly related to the driving stability and security. In this connection, the concept of driving trajectory in curved section was proposed, six track types were classified and defined, and furthermore their characteristic features were determined. Most importantly, considering curve geometry and vehicle dynamic characteristics, each trajectory model was established, respectively, and the optimum driving trajectory models were finally determined based on the crucial factors of vehicle yaw rate, which was also the most important factor that impacts vehicle’s handling stability. Through it all, MATLAB was used to simulate and verify the correctness of models. Finally, this paper comes to the conclusion that normal trajectory and cutting trajectory are the optimum driving trajectories.