Ford Roll Control
Ford will later this year extend the use of the Roll Stability Control (RSC) program it launched on the 2004 Lincoln Aviator and Navigator models to two more of the SUVs it sells in Canada.
Ford Explorer and Expedition will get RSC (which is trademark-registered) as an option for the 2005 model year, as will the Mercury Mountaineer model that's sold in the U.S. but not Canada.
Roll Stability Control is really more of a marketing term than an engineering term, since the Ford system is a more sophisticated and faster-acting version of a stability control program that helps stop the loss of control.
The ''roll stability'' part of the process would come in if that loss of control put the vehicle in a slide that could put the wheels in contact with an object that might cause a rollover.
Whatever it's called, the Ford system should make it less risky to travel in the vehicles that are more prone to rolling over because of their higher centers of gravity, and that's a good thing.
According to Said Deep of Ford's PR department, RSC is ''unlike any other system on the market because it offers added assistance to the driver in maintaining vehicle control during extreme maneuvers if a rollover is likely. The system automatically takes additional counter-measures to reduce the risk of rollover.''
Typical electronic stability control systems are designed to control yaw or skidding only, Deep says, adding that Ford ''has mated its RSC and AdvanceTrac systems to provide even greater safety benefits for the customer.''
Ford's RSC technology is an active stability enhancement system that ''significantly builds upon existing yaw stability control systems in the market today,'' Deep says. ''RSC system continuously calculates if the vehicle may be approaching a situation where rollover is probable and takes action to help prevent rollover.''
In Ford's RSC system, a gyroscopic sensor is included that determines the vehicle's body roll angle and roll rate. ''Along with Ford-developed algorithms embedded in advanced software,'' says Deep, ''this information is used with other vehicle sensors' inertial information including yaw rate, lateral and longitudinal accelerations to monitor the vehicle's roll stability condition approximately 150 times per second.''