Integrated fuzzy/optimal vehicle dynamic control

There are basically two methods to control yaw moment which is the most efficient way to improve vehicle stability and handling. The first method is indirect yaw moment control, which works based on control of the lateral tire force through steering angle control. It is mainly known as active steering control (ASC). Nowadays, the most practical approach to steering control is active front steering (AFS). The other method is direct yaw moment control (DYC), in which an unequal distribution of longitudinal tire forces (mainly braking forces) produces a compensating external yaw moment. It is well known that the AFS performance is limited in the non-linear vehicle handling region. On the other hand, in spite of a good performance of DYC in both the linear and non-linear vehicle handling regions, continued DYC activation could lead to uncomfortable driving conditions and an increase in the stopping distance in the case of emergency braking. It is recommended that DYC be used only in high-g critical maneuvers. In this paper, an integrated fuzzy/optimal AFS/DYC controller has been designed. The control system includes five individual optimal LQR control strategies; each one, has been designed for a specific driving condition. The strategies can cover low, medium, and high lateral acceleration maneuvers on high-μ or low-μ roads. A fuzzy blending logic also has been utilized to mange each LQR control strategy contribution level in the final control action. The simulation results show the advantages of the proposed control system over the individual AFS or DYC controllers.     

Integrated Control of Active Rear Wheel Steering and Direct Yaw Moment Control

An integrated control system of active rear wheel steering (4WS) and direct yaw moment control (DYC) is presented in this paper. Because of the tire nonlinearity that is mainly due to the saturation of cornering forces, vehicle handling performance is improved but limited to a certain extent only by steering control. Direct yaw moment control using braking and/or driving forces is effective not only in linear but also nonlinear ranges of tire friction circle. The proposed control system is a model matching controller which makes the vehicle follow the desired dynamic model by the state feedback of both yaw rate and side slip angle. Various computer simulations are carried out and show that vehicle handling performance is much improved by the integrated control system.     

Integrated Control of Active Rear Wheel Steering and Direct Yaw Moment Control

SUMMARY

An integrated control system of active rear wheel steering (4WS) and direct yaw moment control (DYC) is presented in this paper. Because of the tire nonlinearity that is mainly due to the saturation of cornering forces, vehicle handling performance is improved but limited to a certain extent only by steering control. Direct yaw moment control using braking and/or driving forces is effective not only in linear but also nonlinear ranges of tire friction circle. The proposed control system is a model matching controller which makes the vehicle follow the desired dynamic model by the state feedback of both yaw rate and side slip angle. Various computer simulations are carried out and show that vehicle handling performance is much improved by the integrated control system.     

Multi-axle vehicle dynamics stability control algorithm with all independent drive wheel

The stability driving characteristic and the tire wear of 8-axle vehicle with 16-independent driving wheels are discussed in this paper. The lateral stability of 8-axle vehicle can be improved by the direct yaw moment which is generated by the 16 independent driving wheels. The hierarchical controller is designed to determine the required yaw torque and driving force of each wheel. The upper level controller uses feed-forward and feed-backward control theory to obtain the required yaw torque. The fuzzification weight ratio of two control objective is built in the upper level controller to regulate the vehicle yaw and lateral motions. The rule-based yaw moment distribution strategy and the driving force adjustment based on the safety of vehicle are proposed in the lower level controller. The influence of rear steering angle is considered in the distribution of driving force of the wheel. Simulation results of a vehicle double lane change show the stability of 8-axle vehicle under the proposed control algorithm. The wear rate of tire is calculated by the interaction force between the tire and ground. The wear of tire is different from each other for the vehicle with the stability controller or not.     

Drive control system design for stability and maneuverability of a 6WD/6WS vehicle

This paper describes a drive controller designed to improve the lateral vehicle stability and maneuverability of a 6-wheel drive / 6-wheel steering (6WD/6WS) vehicle. The drive controller consists of upper and lower level controllers. The upper level controller is based on sliding control theory and determines both front and middle steering angle, additional net yaw moment, and longitudinal net force according to the reference velocity and steering angle of a manual drive, remotely controlled, autonomous controller. The lower level controller takes the desired longitudinal net force, yaw moment, and tire force information as inputs and determines the additional front steering angle and distributed longitudinal tire force on each wheel. This controller is based on optimal distribution control and takes into consideration the friction circle related to the vertical tire force and friction coefficient acting on the road and tire. Distributed longitudinal/lateral tire forces are determined as proportion to the size of the friction circle according to changes in driving conditions. The response of the 6WD/6WS vehicle implemented with this drive controller has been evaluated via computer simulations conducted using the Matlab/Simulink dynamic model. Computer simulations of an open loop under turning conditions and a closed-loop driver model subjected to double lane change have been conducted to demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed drive controller over that of a conventional DYC.     

Vehicle stability control system for enhancing steerabilty,lateral stability,and roll stability

The Vehicle stability control system is an active safety system designed to prevent accidents from occurring and to stabilize dynamic maneuvers of a vehicle by generating an artificial yaw moment using differential brakes. In this paper, in order to enhance vehicle steerability, lateral stability, and roll stability, each reference yaw rate is designed and combined into a target yaw rate depending on the driving situation. A yaw rate controller is designed to track the target yaw rate based on sliding mode control theory. To generate the total yaw moment required from the proposed yaw rate controller, each brake pressure is properly distributed with effective control wheel decision. Estimators are developed to identify the roll angle and body sideslip angle of a vehicle based on the simplified roll dynamics model and parameter adaptation approach. The performance of the proposed vehicle stability control system and estimation algorithms is verified with simulation results and experimental results.     

Electronic stability control for electric vehicle with four in-wheel motors

The electric vehicle with four direct-driven in-wheel motors is an over actuated system. A three-level control strategy of electronic stability control (ESC) is proposed to achieve optimal torque distribution for four in-wheel motors. The first level is a gain-scheduled linear quadratic regulator which is designed to generate the desired yaw moment command for ESC. Control allocation is the second level which is used to distribute the desired longitudinal tire forces according to the yaw moment command while satisfying the driver’s intent for acceleration and deceleration. The associated weighting matrix is designed using the work load ratio at each wheel to prevent saturating the tire. The third level is slip ratio control (SRC) which is employed at each wheel to generate the desired longitudinal tire force based on a combined-slip tire model. Simulation results show that the proposed method can enhance the ESC performance for the test maneuvers. Since the tire model is often unknown for practical implementation, the effectiveness of the SRC is studied using the sine with dwell test. It is found that the SRC is not crucial for achieving performance similar to the proposed method with SRC, if the slip ratio can be maintained in the stable region using traction control system/anti-lock braking system.     

用于电子稳定程序的汽车模型和控制策略

电子稳定程序(ElectronicStabilityProgram)是行驶车辆的一种主动安全系统,它综合了制动防抱死系统,驱动力控制系统和横摆力矩控制系统,使行驶车辆的安全性得到很大的提高。本文首先建立用于电子稳定程序的汽车模型,包括车身模型、悬架模型、转向模型、轮胎模型、制动系统模型、发动机模型和传动系模型。然后建立了主动横摆控制的控制逻辑,通过加入制动防抱死系统和牵引力控制系统,构成了电子稳定程序的控制逻辑。最后对移线运动、紧急转向、制动转向、驱动转向4个典型的工况进行仿真,从而验证了电子稳定程序控制逻辑的正确性。     

Lateral handling improvement with dynamic curvature control for an independent rear wheel drive EV

The integrated longitudinal and lateral dynamic motion control is important for four wheel independent drive (4WID) electric vehicles. Under critical driving conditions, direct yaw moment control (DYC) has been proved as effective for vehicle handling stability and maneuverability by implementing optimized torque distribution of each wheel, especially with independent wheel drive electric vehicles. The intended vehicle path upon driver steering input is heavily depending on the instantaneous vehicle speed, body side slip and yaw rate of a vehicle, which can directly affect the steering effort of driver. In this paper, we propose a dynamic curvature controller (DCC) by applying a the dynamic curvature of the path, derived from vehicle dynamic state variables; yaw rate, side slip angle, and speed of a vehicle. The proposed controller, combined with DYC and wheel longitudinal slip control, is to utilize the dynamic curvature as a target control parameter for a feedback, avoiding estimating the vehicle side-slip angle. The effectiveness of the proposed controller, in view of stability and improved handling, has been validated with numerical simulations and a series of experiments during cornering engaging a disturbance torque driven by two rear independent in-wheel motors of a 4WD micro electric vehicle.     

Selection of Actuator Combination in Integrated Chassis Control Using Taguchi Method

This paper presents a method to select the actuator combination in integrated chassis control using Taguchi method. Electronic stability control (ESC), active front and rear steering (AFS/ARS) are used as an actuator, which is needed to generate a control tire force. After computing the control yaw moment in the upper-level controller, it is distributed into the control tire forces, generated by ESC, AFS and ARS in the lower-level controller. In this paper, the weighted pseudo-inverse control allocation (WPCA) with variable weights is used to determine the control tire forces of each actuator. Taguchi method is adopted for sensitivity analysis on variable weights of WPCA in terms of the control performances such as the maneuverability and the lateral stability. For sensitivity analysis, simulation is performed on a vehicle simulation package, CarSim. From sensitivity analysis, the most effective actuator combination is selected.     

Nonlinear adaptive sliding mode control for vehicle handling improvement via steer-by-wire

This paper proposes a nonlinear adaptive sliding mode control that aims to improve vehicle handling through a Steer-By-Wire system. The designed sliding mode control, which is insensitive to system uncertainties, offers an adaptive sliding gain to eliminate the precise determination of the bound of uncertainties. The sliding gain value is calculated using a simple adaptation algorithm that does not require extensive computational load. Achieving the improved handling characteristics requires both accurate state estimation and well-controlled steering inputs from the Steer-By-Wire system. A second order sliding mode observer provides accurate estimation of lateral and longitudinal velocities while the driver steering angle and yaw rate are available from the automotive sensors. A complete stability analysis based on Lyapunov theory has been presented to guarantee closed loop stability. The simulation results confirmed that the proposed adaptive robust controller not only improves vehicle handling performance but also reduces the chattering problem in the presence of uncertainties in tire cornering stiffness.     

Modeling and control of an anti-lock brake and steering system for cooperative control on split-mu surfaces

The brake and steering systems in vehicles are the most effective actuators that directly affect the vehicle dynamics. In general, the brake system affects the longitudinal dynamics and the steering system affects the lateral dynamics; however, their effects are coupled when the vehicle is braking on a non-homogenous surface, such as a split-mu road. The yaw moment compensation of the steering control on a split-mu road is one of the basic functions of integrated or coordinated chassis control systems and has been demonstrated by several chassis suppliers. However, the disturbance yaw moment is generally compensated for using the yaw rate feedback or using wheel brake pressure measurement. Access to the wheel brake pressure through physical sensors is not cost effective; therefore, we modeled the hydraulic brake system to avoid using physical sensors and to estimate the brake pressure. The steering angle controller was designed to mitigate the non-symmetric braking force effect and to stabilize the yaw rate dynamics of the vehicle. An H-infinity design synthesis was used to take the system model and the estimation errors into account, and the designed controller was evaluated using vehicle tests.     

A tyre slip-based integrated chassis control of front/rear traction distribution and four-wheel independent brake from moderate driving to limit handling

This paper presents a tyre slip-based integrated chassis control of front/rear traction distribution and four-wheel braking for enhanced performance from moderate driving to limit handling. The proposed algorithm adopted hierarchical structure: supervisor – desired motion tracking controller – optimisation-based control allocation. In the supervisor, by considering transient cornering characteristics, desired vehicle motion is calculated. In the desired motion tracking controller, in order to track desired vehicle motion, virtual control input is determined in the manner of sliding mode control. In the control allocation, virtual control input is allocated to minimise cost function. The cost function consists of two major parts. First part is a slip-based tyre friction utilisation quantification, which does not need a tyre force estimation. Second part is an allocation guideline, which guides optimally allocated inputs to predefined solution. The proposed algorithm has been investigated via simulation from moderate driving to limit handling scenario. Compared to Base and direct yaw moment control system, the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce tyre dissipation energy in the moderate driving situation. Moreover, the proposed algorithm enhances limit handling performance compared to Base and direct yaw moment control system. In addition to comparison with Base and direct yaw moment control, comparison the proposed algorithm with the control algorithm based on the known tyre force information has been conducted. The results show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is similar with that of the control algorithm with the known tyre force information.     

A vehicle stability control strategy with adaptive neural network sliding mode theory based on system uncertainty approximation

Modelling uncertainty, parameter variation and unknown external disturbance are the major concerns in the development of an advanced controller for vehicle stability at the limits of handling. Sliding mode control (SMC) method has proved to be robust against parameter variation and unknown external disturbance with satisfactory tracking performance. But modelling uncertainty, such as errors caused in model simplification, is inevitable in model-based controller design, resulting in lowered control quality. The adaptive radial basis function network (ARBFN) can effectively improve the control performance against large system uncertainty by learning to approximate arbitrary nonlinear functions and ensure the global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. In this paper, a novel vehicle dynamics stability control strategy is proposed using the adaptive radial basis function network sliding mode control (ARBFN-SMC) to learn system uncertainty and eliminate its adverse effects. This strategy adopts a hierarchical control structure which consists of reference model layer, yaw moment control layer, braking torque allocation layer and executive layer. Co-simulation using MATLAB/Simulink and AMESim is conducted on a verified 15-DOF nonlinear vehicle system model with the integrated-electro-hydraulic brake system (I-EHB) actuator in a Sine With Dwell manoeuvre. The simulation results show that ARBFN-SMC scheme exhibits superior stability and tracking performance in different running conditions compared with SMC scheme.     

On the handling performance of a vehicle with different front-to-rear wheel torque distributions

ABSTRACT

The handling characteristic is a classical topic of vehicle dynamics. Usually, vehicle handling is studied by analyzing the understeer coefficient in quasi-steady-state maneuvers. In this paper, experimental tests are performed on an electric vehicle with four independent motors, which is able to reproduce front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive (FWD, RWD and AWD, respectively) architectures. The handling characteristics of each architecture are inferred through classical and new concepts. The study presents a procedure to compute the longitudinal and lateral tire forces, which is based on a first estimate and a subsequent correction of the tire forces that guarantee the equilibrium. A yaw moment analysis is performed to identify the contributions of the longitudinal and lateral forces. The results show a good agreement between the classical and new formulations of the understeer coefficient, and allow to infer a relationship between the understeer coefficient and the yaw moment analysis. The handling characteristics vary with speed and front-to-rear wheel torque distribution. An apparently surprising result arises at low speed: the RWD architecture is the most understeering configuration. This is discussed by analyzing the yaw moment caused by the longitudinal forces of the front tires, which is significant for high values of lateral acceleration and steering angle.     

Coordinated control of ESC and AFS with adaptive algorithms

This paper presents a coordinated control of electronic stability control (ESC) and active front steering (AFS) with adaptive algorithms for yaw moment distribution in integrated chassis control (ICC). In order to distribute a control yaw moment into control tire forcres of ESC and AFS, and to coordinate the relative usage of ESC to AFS, a LMS/Newton algorithm (LMSN) is adopted. To make the control tire forces zero in applying LMS and LMSN, the zero-attracting mechanism is adopted. Simulations on vehicle simulation software, CarSim®, show that the proposed algorithm is effective for yaw moment distribution in integrated chassis control.     

Direct tire force generation algorithm based on non-iterative nonlinear inverse tire model

The function of vehicle dynamics control system is adjusting the yaw moment, the longitudinal force and lateral force of a vehicle body through several chassis systems, such as brakes, steering and suspension. Individual systems such as ESC, AFS and 4WD can be used to achieve desired performance by controlling actuator variables. However, integrated chassis control systems that have multiple objectives may not simply achieve the desired performance by controlling the actuators directly. Usually those systems determine the required tire forces in an upper level controller and a lower level controller regulates the tire forces through the actuators. The tire force is controlled in a recursive way based on vehicle state measurement, which may not be sufficient for fast response. For immediate force tracking, we introduce a direct tire force generation method that uses a nonlinear inverse tire model, a pseudo-inverse model of vehicle dynamics and the relationship between longitudinal force and brake pressure.     

Chassis integrated control for active suspension,active front steering and direct yaw moment systems using hierarchical strategy

This paper proposes a novel integrated controller with three-layer hierarchical structure to coordinate the interactions among active suspension system (ASS), active front steering (AFS) and direct yaw moment control (DYC). First of all, a 14-degree-of-freedom nonlinear vehicle dynamic model is constructed. Then, an upper layer is designed to calculate the total corrected moment for ASS and intermediate layer based on linear moment distribution. By considering the working regions of the AFS and DYC, the intermediate layer is functionalised to determine the trigger signal for the lower layer with corresponding weights. The lower layer is utilised to separately trace the desired value of each local controller and achieve the local control objectives of each subsystem. Simulation results show that the proposed three-layer hierarchical structure is effective in handling the working region of the AFS and DYC, while the quasi-experimental result shows that the proposed integrated controller is able to improve the lateral and vertical dynamics of the vehicle effectively as compared with a conventional electronic stability controller.     

Nonlinear PI front and rear steering control in four wheel steering vehicles

Vehicle steering dynamics show resonances, which depend on the longitudinal speed, unstable equilibrium points and limited stability regions depending on the constant steering wheel angle, longitudinal speed and car parameters.

The main contribution of this paper is to show that a combined decentralized proportional active front steering control and proportional-integral active rear steering control from the yaw rate tracking error can assign the eigenvalues of the linearised single track steering dynamics, without lateral speed measurements, using a standard single track car model with nonlinear tire characteristics and a non-linear first-order reference model for the yaw rate dynamics driven by the driver steering wheel input. By choosing a suitable nonlinear reference model it is shown that the responses to driver step inputs tend to zero (or reduced) lateral speed for any value of longitudinal speed: in this case the resulting controlled vehicle static gain from driver input to yaw rate differs from the uncontrolled one at higher speed. The closed loop system shows the advantages of both active front and rear steering control: higher controllability, enlarged bandwidth for the yaw rate dynamics, suppressed resonances, new stable cornering manoeuvres, enlarged stability regions, reduced lateral speed and improved manoeuvrability; in addition comfort is improved since the phase lag between lateral acceleration and yaw rate is reduced.

For the designed control law a robustness analysis is presented with respect to system failures, driver step inputs and critical car parameters such as mass, moment of inertia and front and rear cornering stiffness coefficients. Several simulations are carried out on a higher order experimentally validated nonlinear dynamical model to confirm the analysis and to explore the robustness with respect to unmodelled dynamics.     

Nonlinear PI front and rear steering control in four wheel steering vehicles

Vehicle steering dynamics show resonances, which depend on the longitudinal speed, unstable equilibrium points and limited stability regions depending on the constant steering wheel angle, longitudinal speed and car parameters.

The main contribution of this paper is to show that a combined decentralized proportional active front steering control and proportional-integral active rear steering control from the yaw rate tracking error can assign the eigenvalues of the linearised single track steering dynamics, without lateral speed measurements, using a standard single track car model with nonlinear tire characteristics and a non-linear first-order reference model for the yaw rate dynamics driven by the driver steering wheel input. By choosing a suitable nonlinear reference model it is shown that the responses to driver step inputs tend to zero (or reduced) lateral speed for any value of longitudinal speed: in this case the resulting controlled vehicle static gain from driver input to yaw rate differs from the uncontrolled one at higher speed. The closed loop system shows the advantages of both active front and rear steering control: higher controllability, enlarged bandwidth for the yaw rate dynamics, suppressed resonances, new stable cornering manoeuvres, enlarged stability regions, reduced lateral speed and improved manoeuvrability; in addition comfort is improved since the phase lag between lateral acceleration and yaw rate is reduced.

For the designed control law a robustness analysis is presented with respect to system failures, driver step inputs and critical car parameters such as mass, moment of inertia and front and rear cornering stiffness coefficients. Several simulations are carried out on a higher order experimentally validated nonlinear dynamical model to confirm the analysis and to explore the robustness with respect to unmodelled dynamics.