In recent years, forests in Japan have required thinning. However, the sustainable wood is left around there because the tremendous effort and costs would have to be expended to transport it out. Thus, cut wood has been left around there. In this study, we design a high maneuverability vehicle that has balance control in its load-carrying platform. The vehicle can transport the sustainable wood on steep sloping ground. In this study, we detected a delay time in regard to controlling the motion of the load-carrying platform. We used generalized minimum variance control, one form of the predictive control, to control the system. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).