Adama Science and Technology University Mechanical & vehicle Engineering Department

ELECTRONIC STABILITY PROGRAM

(ESP)

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Introduction
Driving safety took a big step forward in the mid-1990s when electronic stability control
was introduced. The German auto supplier Bosch developed the first system, and the Mercedes-
Benz S-Class and BMW 7-series were the first cars to use the new safety and regulatory devices.
It's been more than a decade since electronic stability control was first introduced, and it goes by
many names, depending on the company. Audi calls it the Electronic Stability Program, or ESP;
at Ford, it goes by Advance Trac. GM has Stabilitrak, and Porsche puts its stamp on the system
by dubbing it Porsche Stability Management.

But all of these systems, no matter their names, use high-tech sensors, the car's central computer
and mechanical actions to assist in driving safely. We often read about high-performance cars
having a tendency to under steer or over steer; but the truth is, any car can veer off course,
especially if the road is slippery.

Safety systems in vehicles

 Passive safety systems protect the passengers in case of an accident like;
 Airbag
 Seat-belt tightener
 Active safety systems help prevent accidents like;
 Antilock braking system ABS
 Traction control system TCS

Antilock Braking System

 Prevents the wheels from locking and thus allows avoiding obstacles
 The vehicle remains under control even while braking on one-sided
slippery road
 The stopping distance is usually shortened compared to locked wheels

Traction Control System

 Fast interventions in engine management and brakes prevent the riven

wheels from spinning
 Safe drive off is possible even on one-sided slippery road
 TCS prevents the vehicle from skidding when accelerating too much
in a turn

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Under steer and over steer

ESP monitors the vehicle’s traction and handling, using sensors to detect wheel speed, under
steer and over steer

 Under steer
Under steer happens when the front wheels don't have enough traction and the car
continues moving forward rather than turning.
Vehicle does not turn as sharply as desired. The vehicle seems to “plow” straight ahead.
ESP will brake the inside rear wheel.
 Over steer
Vehicle turns in more sharply than desired. The rear of the vehicle swings outward. ESP will
brake the outside front wheel.

Over steer is just the opposite of under steer the car turns farther than the driver intended causing
the rear wheels to slide and the car to spin

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What is so special about ESP?

 ESP watches out: Surveys the vehicle‘s behavior

(Longitudinal and lateral dynamics)

 Watches the driver‘s commands

(Steering angle, brake pressure, engine torque)

 Is continuously active in the background

Electronic Stability Control Components

There are lots of safety and regulatory devices in cars these days, and they all work together to
keep the wheels on the road and the passengers safe. Electronic stability control, in particular,
takes advantage of two other systems, ABS and traction control, plus a few special sensors, to do
its job.

Before the 1990s, drivers were taught to pump the brake pedal to keep the brakes from locking
up and causing a slide. With the invention of anti-lock brakes, driving safely became much
easier. ABS electronically pumped the brakes faster than the driver could, which kept them from
locking and causing under steer or over steer. ESC uses this system to correct the problem almost
before it can start by activating the ABS for as many wheels as needed, from one individual
wheel to all four. The nature of ABS keeps the over- or under steer from getting worse while
slowing the car to a controllable speed.

ESC also uses traction control for driving safety. If ESC is in charge of monitoring side-to-side
motion around a vertical axis, traction control is in charge of front-to-back motion. If the traction
control system is detecting wheel slippage, the electronic stability control sensor will pick up on
the direction of the slide. If there's a difference between the angle of the steering wheel and the
direction the car is sliding, the ESC will work with the traction control system to engage the ABS
at the proper wheel (or wheels) and control the throttle to reduce the speed of the vehicle, too.

1, Wheel-speed sensors: -

The control unit uses the signal from the wheel speed sensors to compute the speed of the
wheels. Two different operating principles are used: passive and active wheel-speed sensors.
Both measure the wheel speed in a contact free way via magnetic fields. Nowadays active
sensors are mostly employed. They can identify both the direction of rotation and the standstill of

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a wheel. One wheel-speed sensor at each wheel measures the speed of the wheel which the
computer can then compare to the speed of the engine.

2, Yaw-Rate Sensors
Yaw rate sensors measure a vehicle's angular velocity about its vertical axis in degrees per
second or radians per second.

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• Basic Description

– Yaw rate sensors use gyroscopes to monitor the slip angle, the angle between the
vehicle’s heading and actual movement direction.

– The main application of these sensors is to determine the orientation of the

vehicle as it starts to roll over.

• Yaw rate sensors play a key role in electronic stability control systems.

• In general, these sensors are available in two types:

 Piezoelectric
 Micromechanical

A, Piezoelectric

• The word is derived from the Greek piezo or piezein (πιέζειν), which means to squeeze or
press.

• Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials to generate an electric field or electric

potential in response to applied mechanical strain

• In order to run an electric load (such as a light bulb) on a piezoelectric device, the applied
mechanical stress must oscillate back and forth. For example, if you had such a device in
your shoes you could charge your cell phone
while walking but not while standing.

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• The sensor incorporates a Gyro-Chip technology to measure the car's yaw rate. By
combining this measurement with those for steering angle and lateral acceleration,
Vehicle stability systems can compare actual vehicle dynamics to the driver's intentions,
and then gently apply the ABS and traction-control systems to "nudge" the car back in to
the expected line.

• The GyroChip consists of a microminiature double-ended tuning fork fabricated via

photolithography from piezoelectric quartz. This tuning fork shaped structure contains
four piezo elements, two on the top and two below.

• An oscillator powers one of the tuning forks--the drive tines--at resonance. And as long
as the GyroChip is stationary, the other set of tines--the pickup tines--do not oscillate.

• As soon as the chip is rotated, however, the pickup tines respond to Coriolis force and
begin to oscillate perpendicular to the drive tines and with a magnitude that is
proportional to the rotational rate.

• An amplifier and demodulator convert the signals from the pickup tines to plus or minus
DC voltage that is then used by the Vehicle stability system.

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II, Micro machined Yaw Rate Sensor

• Micromechanical: In this type of sensor, a micro mechanical capacitive acceleration
sensor is placed on an oscillating element. This measured acceleration is proportional to
the product of yaw rate and the oscillatory velocity.

• This types use Capacitive Sensor for their operation

Capacitive Sensor Operation

• Basic principle of operation

– Capacitance and Distance

• Noncontact capacitive sensors work by measuring changes in an electrical property called

capacitance.

Capacitance describes how two conductive objects with a space between them respond to a
voltage difference applied to them.

When a voltage is applied to the conductors, an electric field is created between them causing
positive and negative charges to collect on each object.

If the polarity of the voltage is reversed, the charges will also reverse.

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Figure 1

Applying a voltage to conductive objects causes positive and negative charges to collect on each
object. This creates an electric field in the space between the objects.

• Capacitive sensors use an alternating voltage which causes the charges to continually
reverse their positions. The moving of the charges creates an alternating electric current
which is detected by the sensor (Fig. 2).

Figure 2

Applying an alternating voltage causes the charges to move back and forth between the objects,
creating an alternating current which is detected by the sensor

• The amount of current flow is determined by the capacitance, and the capacitance is
determined by the area and proximity of the conductive objects.

• Larger and closer objects cause greater current than smaller and more distant objects. The
capacitance is also affected by the type of nonconductive material in the gap between the
objects.

• Technically speaking, the capacitance is directly proportional to the surface area of the
objects and the dielectric constant of the material between them, and inversely
proportional to the distance between them

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• In typical capacitive sensing applications, the probe or sensor is one of the conductive
objects; the target object is the other.

• The sizes of the sensor and the target are assumed to be constant as is the material
between them. Therefore, any change in capacitance is a result of a change in the distance
between the probe and the target.

• The electronics are calibrated to generate specific voltage changes for corresponding
changes in capacitance.

• These voltages are scaled to represent specific changes in distance. The amount of
voltage change for a given amount of distance change is called the sensitivity.

• A common sensitivity setting is 1.0V/100μm. That means that for every 100μm change in
distance, the output voltage changes exactly 1.0V. With this calibration, a +2V change in
the output means that the target has moved 200μm closer.

3. Steering-angle sensors:-
This sensor is located in the steering column and it’s responsible to measure the position of the
steering wheel by determining the steering angle. From the steering angle, the vehicle speed and the
desired braking pressure or the position of the accelerator pedal, the driving intention of the driver is
calculated (desired state).This sensor, in the steering column, measures the direction the driver
intends to aim the car. If it's different than the direction the car is actually traveling, the ESC
system will kick in.

Operating principle

The steering-angle sensor has two potentiometers offset by 90°. The steering-wheel angle
determined by these two potentiometers covers one full steering-wheel turn; each of these values
is repeated after +/- 180°. The steering angle sensor knows this and counts the steering-wheel
revolutions accordingly. The overall steering wheel angle is thus made up of the current steering
wheel angle together with the number of steering wheel rotations. In order that the overall
steering wheel angle is available at any time, uninterrupted detection of all steering wheel
movements - even when the vehicle is stationary is required.

In order to achieve this, the steering angle sensor is permanently supplied with power from
Terminal 30.This means that steering-wheel movements are also detected with ‘’ignition off”.
The steering angle detected by the potentiometers remains available even after interruptions to
the power supply; the number of steering wheel revolutions, however, is not. In order that the
steering angle sensor remains functional after power supply interruptions, software that
calculates the number of steering wheel rotations on the basis of the speed of rotation of the road
wheels (and, on some models, the steering wheel being turned from lock to lock) has been
integrated.

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This process is referred to as initialization or imposition. If imposition does not succeed by the
time a speed of approx. 20 km/h is reached from a standing start, the ESP is switched to passive
mode, the ESP warning lamp comes on, and a fault is recorded on the ESP control unit. The
imposition process is performed whenever the ignition is switched on if the number of steering
wheel revolutions is not available.

4, Hydraulic modulator with attached control unit

Hydraulic modulator executes the commands from the control unit and regulates, via solenoid
valves, the pressures in the wheel brakes. The hydraulic modulator is the hydraulic connection
between the master cylinder and the wheel cylinders. It is located in the engine compartment.
The control unit takes over the electrical and electronic tasks as well as control function of the
system.

5, Communication with engine management

Via the data bus, the ESP control unit is able to communicate with the engine control unit. In
this way, the engine torque can be reduced if the driver accelerates too much in certain driving
situations. Similarly, it can compensate for excessive slip of the driven wheels provoked by the
engine drag torque.

Electronic Stability Control Explained

The electronic stability control system doesn't work all alone -- it uses the car's other safety and
regulatory devices, like anti-lock braking and traction control, to correct problems before they
become accidents.

The center of the ESC system is also the center of the car: the yaw control sensor. It's almost
always located as close to the very center of the car as possible. If you were sitting in the driver's
seat, the yaw control sensor would be under your right elbow, somewhere between you and the
passenger.

But what the heck is "yaw?" If it sounds like something a pirate would say, that's because they
probably would. Ships and cars both experience yaw, which is a movement around a vertical, or
z, axis. It's as if the car were pinned like a butterfly in a display case, where the pin is the z axis.
The yaw sensor is right at the center of the pin. If the ESC system detects that the car is swinging
too far (or not far enough) around that up-and-down axis, it springs into action to assist.

Using all the modern electronic systems at its disposal, the ESC can activate one or more
individual brakes, depending on which wheel can increase driving safety the most, and control
the throttle to lessen the speed at which the car is traveling. The sensor is looking for differences
between the direction of the steering wheel and the direction the car is headed; the car's computer
then makes the necessary corrections to bring the vehicle's direction of travel in line with what
the driver wanted.

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Under steer happens when the front wheels don't have enough traction and the car
continues moving forward rather than turning. Over steer is just the opposite: the car turns farther
than the driver intended causing the rear wheels to slide and the car to spin. ESC, as electronic
stability control is often known, can help correct both of these situations.

Now that you know the basics, read on to find out how this advanced safety system operates
during an emergency.

The most important role ESC plays in driving safety is reducing the number and severity
of crashes. Almost everyone ends up in nasty, slippery driving conditions at some point, whether
it's a rainstorm, a sudden patch of ice or a snowy road. Electronic stability control, along with the
other safety and regulatory devices on-board today's vehicles, can help drivers maintain control
on the road.

Electronic stability control will not engage in the event of a fender-bender the kind of
accident that typically happens in stop-and-go traffic. However, some cars have other systems to
help with this, including sensors in the front of the car that measure the distance between your
bumper and the bumper of the car in front of you, but electronic stability control doesn't really
come into play at that point. It's more helpful when slippery conditions mean a loss of control,
regardless of whether there's anyone else on the road or not.

In what situations is ESP needed?

ESP mainly works when the following circumstances happen. They are:-

 Avoiding a sudden obstacle

 Sudden wrenching of the steering wheel
 Driving on varying road surfaces (Longitudinal and/or lateral changes)

I, Avoiding a sudden obstacle

A situation that occurs frequently when driving a motor vehicle is difficult to guess
what will happen ahead despite of the heavy traffic in the road. In the figure below
we can observe the motions that will happen in car “b” when car “a” trying to enter
to the main road. The ESP monitors the vehicle 25 times per second. If it detects a
car tends to swerve the system reacts immediately. Braking force applied by the
computer takes effect on the individual wheels and returns the vehicle in to its line.

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Observation:

 Stage 1:
– The driver hit the brakes, wrench the steering wheel as a result vehicle tends to
understeer
 Stage 2:
– ESP brakes the left rear wheel, vehicle obeys steering-wheel input
 Stage 3:
– The driver reverse steering input to hold its first position: Vehicle tends to
oversteer, then ESP brakes the front left wheel
 Stage 4:
– Vehicle becomes stable again

II, Sudden wrenching of the steering wheel

The course of a road can’t always be correctly judged. For example, even a single bend can be
tight than expected. If the vehicle is moving too fast, the centrifugal force pushes the vehicle to
outward and this makes it difficult to control the vehicle. ESP compares the driver intension with
the vehicle’s actual behavior. If the vehicle debates any situation out of the desired course, ESP
takes a decision without any driver’s action.

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Observation:

 Stage 1:
Vehicle tends to break away. Automatic breaking-pressure rise at the front right wheel
 Stage 2:
Vehicle is stable
 Stage 3:
Vehicle tends to break away. Automatic breaking-pressure rise at the front left wheel
 Stage 4:
Vehicle is stable

III, Driving on varying road surfaces

Observation:

 Vehicle tends to break away (understeer):

 ESP intervenes and brakes the right rear wheel while at the same time
reducing engine torque

ESP has advantages:-

 Improved starting and acceleration capability

 Improved stability when: braking, accelerating, coasting, cornering

 Shortens stopping distances in corners or on slippery surfaces

 Informs driver of slippery conditions

 ABS, ASR, EBR and ESP functions are combined in one control unit

 ABS, ASR, EBR and ESP basic components are combined in one hydraulic unit

 Prevent over steer and under steer

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ESP Control Modes

ESP Pressure Build Up

Example: let say right front wheel requires braking, then from the above diagram the following will
happen when ESP comes in charge.

• y18, y19 close

• ECU applies ~5bar pressure (Note: brake light suppression relay activated)

• M1 activated

• Y22 opened

• Y6 closed

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ESP Pressure Holding

Example: Right front wheel

• Y22 closed, preventing pressure build up

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ESP Pressure Reduction

Example: Right front wheel

• Y18 is opened

• Pressure returned to the master cylinder

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Key terms

• ABS – Anti-lock Brake System

• ASR – Acceleration Slip Regulation

• EBR – Engine Braking Regulation

• EBD – Electronic Brake Force Distribution

• ETS – Electronic Traction System

• ESP – Electronic Stability Program

• BAS – Brake Assist System

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