Using the lead vehicle as preview sensor in convoy vehicle active suspension control

Both ride quality and roadholding of actively suspended vehicles can be improved by sensing the road ahead of the vehicle and using this information in a preview controller. Previous applications have used look-ahead sensors mounted on the front bumper to measure terrain beneath. Such sensors are vulnerable, potentially confused by water, snow, or other soft obstacles and offer a fixed preview time. For convoy vehicle applications, this paper proposes using the overall response of the preceding vehicle(s) to generate preview controller information for follower vehicles. A robust observer is used to estimate the states of a quarter-car vehicle model, from which road profile is estimated and passed on to the follower vehicle(s) to generate a preview function. The preview-active suspension, implemented in discrete time using a shift register approach to improve simulation time, reduces sprung mass acceleration and dynamic tyre deflection peaks by more than 50% and 40%, respectively. Terrain can change from one vehicle to the next if a loose obstacle is dislodged, or if the vehicle paths are sufficiently different so that one vehicle misses a discrete road event. The resulting spurious preview information can give suspension performance worse than that of a passive or conventional active system. In this paper, each vehicle can effectively estimate the road profile based on its own state trajectory. By comparing its own road estimate with the preview information, preview errors can be detected and suspension control quickly switched from preview to conventional active control to preserve performance improvements compared to passive suspensions.     

Output feedback H ∞/GH 2 preview control of active vehicle suspensions: a comparison study of LQG preview

This study concerns with multi-objective H _∞/GH ₂ preview control of active vehicle suspensions. This control scheme has two main aspects: first, it allows constrained outputs of the system to vary freely as long as they remain within their given bounds, in order that the best possible performance could be delivered. Secondly, the optimisation as well as constraint fulfilment is done for the worst-case road disturbances to cover all road types. To design a system to perform satisfactorily for a wide range of road irregularities, H _∞-norm is used wherever minimisation is required, and generalised H ₂-norm is used to care for the constraints on suspension working space. Moreover, to ensure desired stability margins for the system, pole location constraints are considered in the design. The proposed approach is evaluated on a quarter-car model and compared with the state-of-the-art preview control algorithm in the literature, namely, Linear quadratic Gaussian preview. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Optimal preview game theory approach to vehicle stability controller design

Dynamic game theory brings together different features that are keys to many situations in control design: optimisation behaviour, the presence of multiple agents/players, enduring consequences of decisions and robustness with respect to variability in the environment, etc. In the presented methodology, vehicle stability is represented by a cooperative dynamic/difference game such that its two agents (players), namely the driver and the direct yaw controller (DYC), are working together to provide more stability to the vehicle system. While the driver provides the steering wheel control, the DYC control algorithm is obtained by the Nash game theory to ensure optimal performance as well as robustness to disturbances. The common two-degrees-of-freedom vehicle-handling performance model is put into discrete form to develop the game equations of motion. To evaluate the developed control algorithm, CarSim with its built-in nonlinear vehicle model along with the Pacejka tire model is used. The control algorithm is evaluated for a lane change manoeuvre, and the optimal set of steering angle and corrective yaw moment is calculated and fed to the test vehicle. Simulation results show that the optimal preview control algorithm can significantly reduce lateral velocity, yaw rate, and roll angle, which all contribute to enhancing vehicle stability.     

Road disturbance estimation for the optimal preview control of an active suspension systems based on tracked vehicle model

This research investigates stochastic estimation of a look-ahead sensor scheme using the optimal preview control for an active suspension system of a full tracked vehicle (FTV). In this scheme, wheel disturbance input to the front wheels are estimated using the dynamic equations of the system. The estimated road disturbance input at the front wheels are utilized as preview information for the control of subsequently following wheels of FTV. The design of optimal preview control is used as a classical linear quadratic Gaussian problem by combining dynamics of the original system and estimation of previewed road inputs. The effectiveness of the preview controller is evaluated by comparing the estimated information with the measured information for different road profiles, where Kalman filter is used for the state-variables estimation of the FTV. This research also considers the reduced order estimation using commonly available sensors in order to decrease the number of sensors and measurements. The simulation results’ using an active suspension system with different preview information shows that the proposed system can be beneficial for the improvement of ride comfort of tracked vehicles without using any specialized sensors for preview information calculation.     

Reduction of preview distance in lane-keeping control

Lane marker detection is indispensable for a lane-keeping-control algorithm. However, it is impossible to detect lane markers when the curvature of the lane the vehicle is travelling on is large or when there is another car in front of the vehicle with short distance. For lane marker detection, it is desirable to set a preview point close to the vehicle. Therefore, by analyzing the block diagram of driver-vehicle system, we propose a method to reduce preview distance without lane tracking performance deterioration by increasing preview points from the conventional one point to two points. Furthermore, it is revealed that driving along a corner with constant curvature without steady-state deviation and arbitrary design of tracking dynamic characteristics become possible by increasing preview points.     

Evaluation of vehicle motion sickness due to vehicle vibration

Recently many studies have been presented for realizing a better riding comfort. Above all, efforts for reducing a vehicle motion sickness of occupants are still needed. Motion sickness is considered to be caused by various factors, for example, personal constitution, driving situation and vehicle vibration. In this paper, the characteristics of vehicle body vibration that influence motion sickness were examined and methods to estimate the motion sickness level due to vehicle vibration were proposed. The proposed methods were applied to verify the effects of the improved suspension system that is installed in recently developed vehicles.     

皮卡:回顾2002,展望2003

2002年是我国皮卡增长的又一个高峰期,激烈的竞争促进了皮卡行业整体的发展,也促使皮卡新品层出,产品呈现多元化。2003年将是皮卡的巩固阶段,皮卡国内外市场将会稳定增长,竞争层面将会拉开,各有侧重。继2002年低价位SUV畅销后,2003年皮卡向多功能商务车升级将是一个热点,另外在竞争方面将更多地打服务牌。     

基于ADAMS整车操纵稳定性分析

利用ADAMS软件,建立整车模型。对整车进行操纵稳定性分析,包括稳态回转、角跃阶输入、低速与高速转向回正以及单移线试验。从而实现了虚拟样机技术的应用,仿真分析整车的操纵稳定性,也验证了模型建立的准确性。     

Predictive control of a vehicle trajectory using a coupled vector with vehicle velocity and sideslip angle

In this paper, a predictive algorithm for vehicle trajectory control using the vehicle velocity and sideslip angle is proposed. Since the driving state of a vehicle generates nonholonomic constraint equations, it is difficult to control the trajectory with a conventional control algorithm. Furthermore, control vectors such as vehicle velocity and sideslip angle are coupled together; hence, a separate control for each variable is not suitable. In this study, a coupled control vector that combines the velocity and sideslip angle is proposed for the predictive control of vehicle trajectory. Since the coupled control vector is derived from the status of the vehicle’s motion, it is easy to generate a feedback control vector for the predictive controller. The coupled vector cannot be directly used as input to the vehicle systems; therefore, the vehicle input vector should be calculated from the control vector using a nonlinear function. Since nonlinear functions are not inserted in the control loop, they are calculated by the controller. Therefore, this method does not require a linearization process in the control logic, which enhances the stability and accuracy of the predictive controller.     

Preview suspension control for a full tracked vehicle

In this study, preview control algorithms for the active and semi-active suspension systems of a full tracked vehicle (FTV) are designed based on a 3-D.O.F model and evaluated. The main issue of this study is to make the ride comfort characteristics of a fast moving tracked vehicle better to keep an operator’s driving capability. Since road wheels almost trace the profiles of the road surface as long as the track doesn’t depart from the ground, the preview information can be obtained by measuring only the absolute position or velocity of the first road wheel. Simulation results show that the performance of the sky-hook suspension system almost follows that of full state feedback suspension system and the on-off semi-active system carries out remarkable performance with the combination of 12 on-off semi-active suspension units. The results simulated with 1^st and 2^nd weighting sets mean that the suspension system combined with the soft type of inner suspension and hard type of outer suspension can carry out better ride comfort characteristics than that with identical suspensions. The full tracked vehicle (FTV) system is uncontrollable and the system is split into controllable and uncontrollable subspace using singular value decomposition transformation. Frequency response curves to four types of inputs, such as heaving, pitching, rolling, and warping inputs, also demonstrate the merits of preview control in ride comfort. All the frequency characteristic responses confirm the continuous time results.     

混合动力电动汽车控制策略的研究

主要讨论了并联式混合动力电动汽车的控制策略,详细阐述了控制策略的依据以及控制过程,并给出了控制策略的仿真结果。     

Design of a rollover index-based vehicle stability control scheme

This paper presents a rollover index (RI)-based vehicle stability control (VSC) scheme. A rollover index, which indicates an impending rollover, is developed by a roll dynamics phase plane analysis. A model-based roll estimator is designed to estimate the roll angle and roll rate of the vehicle body with lateral acceleration, yaw rate, steering angle and vehicle velocity measurements. The rollover index is computed using an estimated roll angle, estimated roll rate, measured lateral acceleration and time-to-wheel lift. A differential braking control law is designed using a direct yaw control method. The VSC threshold is determined from the rollover index. The effectiveness of the RI, the performance of the estimator and the control scheme are investigated via simulations using a validated vehicle simulator. It is shown that the proposed RI can be a good measure of the danger of rollover and the proposed RI-based VSC scheme can reduce the risk of a rollover.     

揭秘2008年宇通最值得关注的产品——宇通“2008中国中部车展”前瞻

10月16～18日,中国中部国际客运车辆展示采购会将在郑州国际会展中心举办。届时,“中国客车第一品牌”宇通将秉承“为您创造更大价值”的品牌理念将豪华登场,带来2008年客车市场最值得关注的数款产品。ZK6140BD（摆渡车）、ZK6100DA（校车）、Zk6146HS（双层）、ZK6146H（一层半）、ZK6147HB、ZK6107H客运版等几款客车产品全线亮相,悉数覆盖了各细分市场,     

车辆排放污染的综合控制

随着我国汽车保有量急剧的增加,车辆排放污染已成为亟待解决的重要课题,控制排放污染是一个大型系统工程,文中从车辆、道路交通环境、交通管理3个方面论述了对排放污染的综合控制。     

Fuzzy-logic applied to yaw moment control for vehicle stability

In this paper, we propose a new yaw moment control based on fuzzy logic to improve vehicle handling and stability. The advantages of fuzzy methods are their simplicity and their good performance in controlling non-linear systems. The developed controller generates the suitable yaw moment which is obtained from the difference of the brake forces between the front wheels so that the vehicle follows the target values of the yaw rate and the sideslip angle. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control method when the vehicle is subjected to different cornering steering manoeuvres such as change line and J-turn under different driving conditions (dry road and snow-covered).     

Fuzzy-logic applied to yaw moment control for vehicle stability

In this paper, we propose a new yaw moment control based on fuzzy logic to improve vehicle handling and stability. The advantages of fuzzy methods are their simplicity and their good performance in controlling non-linear systems. The developed controller generates the suitable yaw moment which is obtained from the difference of the brake forces between the front wheels so that the vehicle follows the target values of the yaw rate and the sideslip angle. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control method when the vehicle is subjected to different cornering steering manoeuvres such as change line and J-turn under different driving conditions (dry road and snow-covered).     

Optimal control to modelling motorcycle rider steering: local versus global coordinate systems in rider preview

The response of a motorcycle is heavily dependent on the rider’s control actions, and consequently a means of replicating the rider’s behaviour provides an important extension to motorcycle dynamics. The primary objective here is to develop effective path-following simulations and to understand how riders control motorcycles. Optimal control theory is applied to the tracking of roadway by a motorcycle, using a non-linear motorcycle model operating in free control by steering torque input. A path-following controller with road preview is designed by minimising tracking errors and control effort. Tight controls with high weightings on performance and loose controls with high weightings on control power are defined. Special attention is paid to the modelling of multipoint preview in local and global coordinate systems. The controller model is simulated over a standard single lane-change manoeuvre. It is argued that the local coordinates point of view is more representative of the way that a human rider operates and interprets information. The simulations suggest that for accurate path following, using optimal control, the problem must be solved by the local coordinates approach in order to achieve accurate results with short preview horizons. Furthermore, some weaknesses of the optimal control approach are highlighted here.     

Torque control of a vehicle with electronic throttle control using an input shaping method

The shock-jerk phenomenon is usually observed in vehicles with manual transmission systems that are rapidly accelerating, and this phenomenon makes the passenger feel uncomfortable. This phenomenon can be minimized using torque control of the vehicle with throttle-by-wire or an ETC (Electronic Throttle Control) system. In this paper, the drivetrain of the vehicle is modeled to simulate the vehicle behavior, and the control strategy of ETC is studied to reduce shock and jerk characteristics using an input shaping method. The control logic is verified by using vehicle modeling and simulations.     

Smooth motion control of the adaptive cruise control system by a virtual lead vehicle

The adaptive cruise control system maintains the appropriate distance to the lead vehicle when the lead vehicle exists and maintains the desired speed when no lead vehicle is detected. A virtual lead vehicle scheme is introduced to make the switching between the speed control algorithm and the distance control algorithm unnecessary and simplify the structure of the control system. The speed and the position of the virtual vehicle can be decided by the control system according to the current situation. Smoother responses are achieved by the virtual lead vehicle scheme compared to the conventional mode switching scheme. This method is also shown to provide a good reaction for when a lead vehicle cuts in or out. A linear quadratic controller with variable weights is suggested to control the virtual lead vehicle. This scheme shows improved performance in terms of passenger comfort and fuel efficiency of the host vehicle.