Global stability of road vehicle motion
The STAVE project aims to increase the active safety of road vehicles to reduce fatalities. STAVE project studies the global stability of the motion of road vehicles with a human or a non-human driver. The aim is to characterize the typical nonlinear behaviors of vehicle-and-driver subject to disturbances like evasive steering maneuvers, wind gust, pot-hole excitation and so on.
The knowledge of such typical behaviours may enable in the future the derivation of proper control laws either for a vehicle with a human driver or for a vehicle without a human driver.
STAVE aims to enable (National or) International Regulatory bodies to issue regulations or standards based on a sound theoretical basis. Education of governmental staff performing homologation of automated vehicles is also a goal of STAVE.
STAVE defines some validated models of vehicle-and driver and performs a bifurcation analysis to characterize typical nonlinear behaviors.
A driving simulator is used to understand and reproduce hard handling maneuvers performed on track. Both road vehicles and motorsport vehicles are considered to cover all of the possible limit nonlinear behaviors. A number of controls are considered to be used with or without the human driver.
The project is expected to produce inputs for UNECE Regulation 157 (theoretically sound reference to stability within the homologation activity of L3 automated vehicles) and ISO 8855 (edits to the vocabulary). Contacts with such organizations -interested to STAVE results- have been established. A brief course for governmental staff involved in homologation activities is also scheduled.
The graphical abstract of STAVE is reported below.

STAVE will exploit the dynamic driving simulator of the Politecnico di Milano. The experimental tests on the track to check the stability of vehicle-and-driver involve extremely dangerous maneuvers. So, it is mandatory resorting to driving simulators to study stability and avoid accidents during experimental tests.
A driving simulator is a test facility in which a human performs driver actions and the vehicle motion is simulated in a virtual environment. The cockpit of the car is made oscillating or vibrating to mimic the acceleration acting at the body of the driver in the real world. Sound and vision of the surroundings are artificial as well. Car motion is simulated by a real-time mathematical vehicle model and the numerical output is used to create the artificial environment. Relevant maneuvers suited for studying vehicle-and-driver stability can be simulated at the driving simulator, e.g. sinusoidal steering with dwell time.
The tests at the driving simulator will be supported by the team of Psycometrics experts from University Vita-Salute San Raffaele of Milan who since some time cooperate with STAVE staff.
The full STAVE proposal is available for the visualization:
The project STAVE has been funded by EU, NextGenerationEU, M4C2I1.1, Project PRIN 2022 PNRR “STAVE”, Prot. P2022KSN9Z – CUP D53D23016080001. Partners involved: Politecnico di Milano, Università di Pisa
Publications
Mastinu, G., Previati, G., Della Rossa, F., Gobbi, M., & Fainello, M., How Drivers Lose Control of the Car. SAE Int. J. Veh. Dyn., Stab., and NVH 8(1):99-121, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4271/10-08-01-0007 OPEN ACCESS
Mastinu, G., Previati, G., Della Rossa, F., Gobbi, M., & Fainello, M., How Drivers Lose Control of the Car, SAE WCX Congress, Detroit, 18 April 2024.
Giacintucci, S., Della Rossa, F., Mastinu, G., Previati, G., & Gobbi, M., Time Delay Effects on Vehicle-And-Driver Stability. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 2024, 58.27: 73-77. TDS, Udine September 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2024.10.302 OPEN ACCESS
Mastinu, G., Previati, G., & Gobbi, M., How limit cycles characterize car-and-driver motion, AVEC’24, Milan, September 2024 OPEN ACCESS
Della Rossa, F., Gobbi, M., Mastinu, G., Milivinti, M., & Previati, G., Vehicle-and-driver stability analysis by a simple model and by a dynamic driving simulator. In Proceedings of the 23rd Driving Simulation & Virtual Reality Conference & Exhibition, Strasbourg, France, 18-20 September 2024. Link
Ballo, F.M., Biffi, A., Gobbi, M., & Mastinu, G. Advanced Tire Testing by an Innovative Moving Laboratory for Automotive Components Safety Assessment (MoLAS). Proceedings of the ASME 2024 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Volume 1: 26th International Conference on Advanced Vehicle Technologies (AVT). Washington, DC, USA. August 25–28, 2024. V001T01A006. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2024-143484
Giacintucci, S., Global Stability of Road Vehicle and Driver, Graduate Thesis, Politecnico di Milano, Supervisor Gianpiero Mastinu, 2024 OPEN ACCESS
Bartali, L., Gabiccini, M., & Wright, S.J., Schwarz decomposition for parallel minimum lap-time problems: evaluating against ADMM, Vehicle System Dynamics, (online first), https://doi.org/10.1080/00423114.2024.2407175
Della Rossa, F., Fontana, M., Giaciuntucci S., Gobbi, M., Mastinu, G., & Previati, G., Early detection of the loss of control of a road vehicle, SAE Int Jou of Vehicle Dyn, Stab. And NVH, submitted
Della Rossa, F., Fontana, M., Giaciuntucci S., Gobbi, M., Mastinu, G., & Previati, G., Early detection of the loss of control of a road vehicle, SAE WCX, Detroit, April 2025
Dell’Orto, G., & Mastinu, G. Indoor Test-Rig to Measure the Lateral Characteristics of Bicycle Tyres. In: Mastinu, G., Braghin, F., Cheli, F., Corno, M., Savaresi, S.M. (eds) 16th International Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Control. AVEC 2024. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70392-8_128
Akutain, X.C., Comolli, F., Gobbi, M., Mastinu, G., & Radaelli, G. Driver Behaviour Characterization Using an Instrumented Steering Wheel Conscious/Unconscious Muscle Activation. In: Mastinu, G., Braghin, F., Cheli, F., Corno, M., Savaresi, S.M. (eds) 16th International Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Control. AVEC 2024. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70392-8_129
Boscaro, L., De Guglielmo, V., Fossati, A., Galbiati, A., Gobbi, M., Mastinu, G., Previati, G., Sabbioni, E., Signorini, M. G., Somma, A., Subitoni, L., & Uccello, L., Interaction of Humans with automated vehicles during a takeover situation. In: Mastinu, G., Braghin, F., Cheli, F., Corno, M., Savaresi, S.M. (eds) 16th International Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Control. AVEC 2024. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70392-8_130
Biffi, A., Ballo, F., Gobbi, M., & Mastinu, G. A Moving Laboratory for Automotive Components Safety Testing (MoLAS). In: Mastinu, G., Braghin, F., Cheli, F., Corno, M., Savaresi, S.M. (eds) 16th International Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Control. AVEC 2024. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70392-8_131
Milivinti, M., Amadini, M., Ballo, F., Gobbi, M., & Mastinu, G. Force Sensors for the Active Safety of Road Vehicles. In: Mastinu, G., Braghin, F., Cheli, F., Corno, M., Savaresi, S.M. (eds) 16th International Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Control. AVEC 2024. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70392-8_132
Giacintucci, S., Della Rossa, F., & Mastinu, G., Early detection of unstable car-and-driver motion, a Floquet theory approach. Nonlinear Dynamics, accepted for publication https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4673548/v1
Previati G., Mastinu G., & Gobbi M., Driver-Steering Wheel Interaction during Cornering. SAE Int. J. Veh. Dyn., Stab., and NVH 8(3):427-442, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4271/10-08-03-0024