Department of Mechanical Engineering
On Friday, Mar. 28th, 2025, KAIT organized the “KAIT Vehicle Dynamics Experience 2025” at Saitama Stadium 2002. This event was designed to showcase the university’s educational research achievements to the public and to deepen participants’ understanding of vehicle dynamics and the latest control technologies through hands-on experiences. The event took place in conjunction with the Vehicle Dynamics Committee of the Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan, Inc., and over 30 participants, including corporate engineers affiliated with the committee, attended the meeting.
The focus of this years’ experience was on “G-Vectoring control, acceleration/deceleration control linked to lateral motion, which was developed at Kanagawa Institute of Technology, and a steering characteristic evaluation method (τL evaluation) that utilizes a driver model.*
For the test rides, students prepared and installed a pedal robot in a production vehicle to implement a pre-calculated ideal G-Vectoring control system, allowing participants to experience the technology firsthand. Additionally, with the cooperation of industry partners, two vehicles equipped with the university’s G-Vectoring control were implemented using ADAS controllers, and these vehicles were also made available for test drives. In one of the experiences, participants were able to feel how attempting to steer to avoid a collision while simulating a sudden braking triggered by Automatic Emergency Braking, AEB can deactivate the AEB system, and it makes collision avoidance more difficult. On the other hand, when AEB and G-Vectoring control were combined, appropriate load transfer was promoted even during braking, significantly enhancing the vehicle’s evasive capabilities. All participants were able to experience the effectiveness of this combination firsthand in actual driving tests.
Additionally, the simulator experience featured a desk-side driving simulator set up on the track, where participants’ own driving inputs were identified as digital twin drivers. Using these parameters, the “τL evaluation method” was introduced to quantitatively assess the steering characteristics of actual vehicles. Participants deepened their understanding of model-based vehicle stability evaluation by experiencing firsthand how their own driving inputs were replicated in the model.
As part of the committee’s program, a first-year graduate student presented on “The Effects of Suspension Vertical Friction on Vehicle Planar Motion,” sparking active discussions with corporate engineers.
The participating industry experts provided the following feedback and evaluations:
“It was a very large-scale event with a rich program, which truly impressed me. The organizers appeared to be very experienced, and I greatly appreciated their thorough explanations of the technical content.”
Kanagawa Institute of Technology plans to continue activities like this to contribute the outcomes of its education and research back to society. This research was selected as the fourth term research theme at the Advanced Technology Research Institute of Kanagawa Institute of Technology, and is supported by the Research Grant for Traffic Accident Prevention under the Compulsory Automobile Liability Insurance Operational Surplus Contribution Project for fiscal years 2024–2025 (https://www.sonpo.or.jp/news/release/2024/pdf/2025_jibai_jigyou.pdf).
* G-Vectoring is a registered trademark of Astemo Corporation.