ISO lane-change test

Application Note AN6013 Optimising the path for

the ISO lane-change test (ISO 3888)
using the steering robot and path following from Anthony Best Dynamics Ltd.
The ISO 3888 specification for a double lane-change
manoeuvre is widely used worldwide to evaluate the
handling and safety of vehicles and their key
components. The specification defines the position of
a series of cones through which the vehicle must be
safely driven. Conventionally the result was either a
pass or fail at a given speed, but increasingly ABD
robots are being used to perform the procedure in
other innovative ways.
The function to generate an ISO3888 path is wellestablished in the ABD path-following software, and
recently this has been developed and improved to
allow the optimisation of the path. This can be used to
reduce lateral acceleration levels and hence increase
the maximum possible speed for the manoeuvre, or to
give different driving styles for the test, all with the
same high accuracy and repeatability.

New type of lane-change path

Conventionally, the path was generated by following a line
mid-way between each set of cones (shown in red, left).
The software can now calculate an alternative path (shown
in green) between the cones using the maximum possible
cornering radius for each turn.
By maximising the
cornering radius, the lateral acceleration is kept to the
minimum possible level. This resulting smoother profile
allows higher driving speed before the limit of lateral grip is
reached.

Step-by-step path adjustments

ABDs powerful path-generation software
allows the user to make precise iterative
modifications to the path, to take account of
any additional clearance needed to miss the
cones and to allow for the vehicle
overshooting the path during the manoeuvre.
In this way the path can be fully optimised for
any vehicle.
This also means that the path can be altered
to represent different driving styles, simply by
modifying the clearances (right). The path is
automatically generated to suit the clearances
chosen, and can be run immediately.
A shortcut button from the Test Run screen
allows the user to edit the path with only a
couple of clicks after a test. With these
features it is possible to perform five runs and
find the optimal path in less than 10 minutes!

Real testing vs. an expert human test driver

The new optimised lane-change path generation function was used in a test programme to compare robot performance to that
of a highly-skilled human test driver, and to experiment with different driving styles through the manoeuvre. The long ISO
lane change was used, at 90km/h, in a large saloon (sedan) car.
The human driver repeated the test a number of times, with two different driving styles aggressive and smooth. The test
was then repeated using the ABD SR60 steering robot and AR1 accelerator robot.
Three paths were created, and optimised to avoid the cones:
-

Robot centre-line, the conventional path mid-way between the cones a very aggressive manoeuvre
Robot max-radius, the smoothest possible path to get through the cones
Robot medium, an intermediate path

Results

Each type of test (human and robot) was performed 4 times. As was expected, the robot was able to follow the paths with far
better repeatability than the human. Analysis was done to determine how the robots driving compared to that of a human.
The RMS value of lateral acceleration was
calculated for each run, to give a measure of how
smoothly the car had been driven.
As the graph (left) shows, the robot could drive
more smoothly than the human (max-radius), and
also more aggressively (centre-line). In all cases
the repeatability was much better than could be
achieved by the human driver.

The tests demonstrated that using the new

path profiles, a robot may be used to drive the
vehicle through the ISO lane-change with a
number of different driving styles, and very
high repeatability. It also shows that the robot
can be used to drive through the lane-change
with a lower RMS lateral acceleration than can
be achieved even by an expert human driver.
For more information contact:
Jeremy Ash
Anthony Best Dynamics
Holt Road
Bradford on Avon
Wilts BA15 1AJ UK

Tel:
Fax:
Email:

+44 (0)1225 860 200

+44 (0)1225 860 201
info@abd.uk.com