Simulation of rear wheel steering in a vehicle towing a single axle trailer with variable load distribution

This is the dataset for a publication on the stability of automotive vehicles when towing single axle trailers. The loading of the trailer is critical for stability, if the load distribution is too far back, then the trailer will begin to sway uncontrollably, dictating the track of the vehicle.

In this research, small proportional control of the rear wheel steering of a larger towing vehicle is shown to be able to further stabilize the system easily, thus improving the safety margin. This is based on control measurements of the yaw angle, either directly measured or inferred from rear camera / parking sensor measurements.

The simulation environment is Simulink and all scripts are included to initialise and plot the results. The work is based on the built in example "Two axle vehicle towing one axle trailer" with modifications to enable control algorithms for rear wheel steering control and variable load distribution. Reference for the original model is available at:

T. M. Inc., Vehicle dynamics blockset version: 2.0 (r2023a) (2022). https://www.mathworks.com

T. M. Inc., Trailer body 3dof documentation (2020). https://uk.mathworks.com/help/vdynblks/ref/trailerbody3dof.html