Dr. John Ferris

Director VTPL

The mission of the Vehicle Terrain Performance Lab is to improve vehicle system performance by studying the interactions between vehicles and terrain.

The lab has adopted a holistic approach toward its research, investigating all aspects of vehicle-terrain interactions, and using a broad range of measurement, analysis, and modeling tools. This approach allows the researchers to broaden their expertise while gaining a deeper understanding of the fundamental issues that are involved in improving vehicle system performance.

The vehicles being studied include passenger cars and trucks, commercial off-road and military vehicles, motorcycles, and more. Critical components of the vehicle system are studied in detail: tires, dampers, and other chassis and steering components. Of equal interest to the lab is the terrain that vehicles traverse. Complete understanding of interactions between vehicle systems and terrain is the founding research goal of the lab. Terrain includes the on-road driving experience and harsh off-road conditions. The on-road driving experience includes test tracks, highway travel, and rough city streets. Off-road terrain may be deformable surfaces such as soil, snow, and sand, or non-deformable surfaces such as rocks and fallen trees.

Understanding the loading that results from a vehicle traversing terrain is the first step in studying the performance. This seminal issue requires a thorough understanding of terramechanics, tire/soil interactions, tire dynamics, chassis design, and vehicle dynamics. The performance of the vehicle system comprises many areas. For example, vehicle performance includes the measurement and prediction of chassis durability, and the development of durability testing schedules. Performance can also be the subjective response of a passenger when traveling in a vehicle; in which case haptics, bio-dynamics, and psychometrics will be investigated. These are just a few examples of the many performance issues that the Vehicle Terrain Performance Laboratory is pursuing.

The Vehicle Terrain Measurement System (VTMS) is a state-of-the-art test bed for integrating technologies from different disciplines, allowing researchers to validate their theoretical and computation work with experimental data. The system is capable of simultaneously scanning the complete topology of the terrain in 3-D; tracking the position, orientation, and speed of the vehicle; and measuring the wheel forces and torques. This data is simultaneously acquired allowing validation of vehicle and tire models, prediction of terramechanics, tuning of chassis components, and prediction of mobility and durability.