Minimum time cornering: The effect of road surface and car transmission layout

This paper investigates the minimum time/limit handling car manoeuvring through nonlinear optimal control techniques. The resulting 'optimal driver' controls the car at its physical limits. The focus is on cornering: different road surfaces (dry and wet paved road, dirt and gravel off-road) and transmission layouts (rear-wheel-drive, front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive) are considered. Low-drift paved circuit-like manoeuvres and aggressive/high- drift even counter-steering rally like manoeuvres are found depending on terrain/layout combinations. The results shed a light on the optimality of limit handling techniques.