Modelling and control of a new differential steering concept

This paper presents a new steer-by-wire concept using an all-wheel drive vehicle layout with in-wheel motors while completely omitting the application of any dedicated steering device. Steering is based on the so-called differential steering principle which generates the necessary steering moment about the kingpins by a traction force difference between left and right sides of the vehicle. In order to investigate the behaviour of the vehicle and to design the underlying control algorithms, a planar vehicle model is presented, where the vehicle is described as constrained non-holonomic system requiring a special treatment. A state feedback linear controller for controlling of the lateral dynamics of the vehicle at higher speeds and a simple PI angle controller for low-speed manoeuvring are developed. The resulting behaviour of the system is investigated by various simulation experiments demonstrating a comparable steering performance of the new steering concept as that of conventional passenger cars.