Subjective Assessment & Objective Measurement of Handling manoeuvres in two-wheeled vehicles

This paper reviews an approach to make the assessment of a two-wheeled vehicle's handling characteristics objective. The traditional approach to the development of good handling properties is based on the subjective evaluations of skilled test drivers. The object of this study is to define semi-empirical mutual relations which are able to associate a Handling Quality Index (HQI) with a combination of determinate mechanical quantities obtained experimentally. In essence the methodology used to describe behaviour such as handling in terms of sensory perception, has relied on a comparison of opinions provided by test-drivers and the result of experimental data pertaining to mechanical quantities such as forces, displacements, torques and rotations measured during standard manoeuvres considered significant. In order to get this correlation, the Genetic Algorithm technique was used as optimization method. The importance of this standardized method for evaluating vehicle's handling behaviour is that it allows to investigate the effects of particular vehicle design features and it is suitable for computer simulation.