Equilibrium systems for motorcycles at low velocities

The analysis of the behavior of motorcycles’ roll stability at rest and at low velocities is the aim of this project. Motorcycles present a significant difference with the other vehicles because of the presence of only two wheels, meaning that without the action of a driver it is a naturally unstable vehicle which when left alone to its own action would fall to the ground. After having analyzed the geometry of a motorcycle, the system was considered as an inverted pendulum with two equivalent point masses in order to study its behavior for what concerns the roll stability at low velocities in case of small roll angles. In order to do so the equivalent system was studied as an LTI system which was stabilized by means of a controller. After having studied the results with different types of the geometric parameters considering the motorcycle at rest, the influence of velocity and gyroscopic effects on the system was studied.