System and method for characterizing the road bank for vehicle roll stability control

A control system for an automotive vehicle having a vehicle body has a roll angular rate sensor generating a roll angular rate signal corresponding to a roll angular motion of the vehicle body. A controller is coupled to roll rate sensor and a plurality of sensors. The controller generates a linear road bank angle (88), first reference bank angle and a relative roll angle (90) in response to the roll angle generator and the plurality of sensor signals. The controller generates a second reference bank angle in response to linear bank angle and the first reference bank angle and a bank angle adjustment factor. The bank angle adjustment is a function of a relative roll angle estimate. The controller controls the safety system (112) in response to the second reference bank angle estimate.