Development of an Electronic Stability Control for Improved Vehicle Handling using Co-Simulation

The research project focuses on integrating the algorithms of recent automotive Electronic Stability Control (ESC) technologies into a commercial multi-body dynamics (MBD) software for full vehicle simulations. Among various control strategies for ESC, the sliding mode control (SMC) method is proposed to develop these algorithms, as it is proven to be excellent at overcoming the effect of uncertainties and disturbances. The ESC model integrates active front steering (AFS) system and direct yaw moment control (DYC) system, using differential braking system, therefore the type of the ESC model is called as integrated vehicle dynamic control (IVDC) system. The IVDC virtual model will be designed using a specialized control system software, called Simulink. The controller model will be used to perform full vehicle simulations, such as sine with dwell (SwD) and double lane change (DLC) tests on Simulink to observe its functionality in stabilizing vehicles. The virtual nonlinear full vehicle model in CarSim will be equipped with the IVDC virtual model to ensure that the proposed IVDC virtual model passes the regulations that describes the ESC homologation process for North America and European countries, each defined by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and United Nations (UN). The proposed research project will enable automotive engineers and researchers to perform full vehicle virtual simulations with ESC capabilities

Integrated vehicle dynamics control using active steering, driveline and braking

This thesis investigates the principle of integrated vehicle dynamics control through proposing a new control configuration to coordinate active steering subsystems and dynamic stability control (DSC) subsystems. The active steering subsystems include Active Front Steering (AFS) and Active Rear Steering (ARS); the dynamic stability control subsystems include driveline based, brake based and driveline plus brake based DSC subsystems. A nonlinear vehicle handling model is developed for this study, incorporating the load transfer effects and nonlinear tyre characteristics. This model consists of 8 degrees of freedom that include longitudinal, lateral and yaw motions of the vehicle and body roll motion relative to the chassis about the roll axis as well as the rotational dynamics of four wheels. The lateral vehicle dynamics are analysed for the entire handling region and two distinct control objectives are defined, i.e. steerability and stability which correspond to yaw rate tracking and sideslip motion bounding, respectively. Active steering subsystem controllers and dynamic stability subsystem controller are designed by using the Sliding Mode Control (SMC) technique and phase-plane method, respectively. The former is used as the steerability controller to track the reference yaw rate and the latter serves as the stability controller to bound the sideslip motion of the vehicle. Both stand-alone controllers are evaluated over a range of different handling regimes. The stand-alone steerability controllers are found to be very effective in improving vehicle steering response up to the handling limit and the stand-alone stability controller is found to be capable of performing the task of maintaining vehicle stability at the operating points where the active steering subsystems cannot. Based on the two independently developed stand-alone controllers, a novel rule based integration scheme for AFS and driveline plus brake based DSC is proposed to optimise the overall vehicle performance by minimising interactions between the two subsystems and extending functionalities of individual subsystems. The proposed integrated control system is assessed by comparing it to corresponding combined control. Through the simulation work conducted under critical driving conditions, the proposed integrated control system is found to lead to a trade-off between stability and limit steerability, improved vehicle stability and reduced influence on the longitudinal vehicle dynamics

Active assistance to the driver for reinforcing the safety on uncertain road surfaces

This study focuses on the stability and safety of vehicle during constant velocity cornering, when the adhesion coefficient of the road suddenly drops. A vehicle model of 14 Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) is used to implement the controllers which precisely control the yaw moment and side slip angle. The effectiveness of combine implementation of Direct Yaw moment Control (DYC) and Active Front wheel Steering (AFS) is realized using obtained results. The corrective steering angle and yaw moment for above controllers are obtained by non-linear Sliding Mode Controller (SMC)

Active neuro-fuzzy integrated vehicle dynamics controller to improve the vehicle handling adn stability at complicated maneuvers

With the recent advancements in vehicle’s industry, driving safety in passenger vehicles is considered one of the key issues in designing any vehicle. According to other studies Electronic Stability Control (ESC) is considered to be the greatest road safety innovation since the seatbelt. Yet ESC has its drawbacks, that encouraged the development of other stability systems to correct or compensate these draw backs. But to efficiently make up for the ESC problems the integration of various control systems is needed, which is a pretty complicated task on its own. Lately, solving this stability problem became a hot research topic accompanied by the market demands for improving the available stability systems. Therefore, this thesis aims to add an innovative approach to help improve the vehicle stability. This approach consists of an intelligent algorithm that collects data about the vehicle characteristics and behavior. Then it uses an Artificial Neural Network to construct a fuzzy logic control system through learning from the optimum control values that was generated beforehand by the intelligent algorithm. This way, the proposed controller didn’t depend only on experts’ knowledge like the other controllers presented in the literature. This makes the controller more generic and reliable which is a very important aspect in designing a safety critical controller, like the presented one, where any fault in it can lead to a fatal accident. Also using the technique of using an Artificial Neural Network to construct a fuzzy logic control allows benefiting from the learning and autoautoadaption capability of neural networks and the smooth controlling performance that fuzzy logic controllers offers. Simulations results show the effectiveness of the proposed controller for improving the vehicle stability in different driving maneuvers. Where the controller’s results were compared to an uncontrolled vehicle and another vehicle controlled by a controller from the literature. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Cuando un vehículo entra en una curva a alta velocidad, la aceleración lateral producida hace que el vehículo tienda a ser más inestable y menos controlable desde el punto de vista del conductor. Esta inestabilidad, podría conllevar un comportamiento no deseado del vehículo, como el sub-viraje o el sobre-viraje, que pueden llevar al vehículo a salirse de su curso previsto o que vuelque. Además, las estadísticas concluyen que la inestabilidad lateral del vehículo es causa de accidentes de fatales consecuencias. Para hacer frente a este problema, se han propuesto varios sistemas de control, con el objetivo de generar una acción contraria que lleve de nuevo al vehículo a su curso deseado. Estos sistemas pretenden alterar de una manera u otra las fuerzas centrífugas del neumático con el fin de producir fuerzas de compensación que ayuden a mantener el control lateral del vehículo. Estos controladores presentan estrategias de control diferentes: algunos intentan afectar directamente a los ángulos de dirección de los neumáticos, otros inciden en las fuerzas longitudinales de los neumáticos para crear un momento de guiñaada alrededor del eje vertical del vehículo, y por último, otros intentan afectar a la distribución de la carga vertical entre los neumáticos. Por ello, debido a la diferencia de las características de cada uno de estos sistemas, sus capacidades de controlar también difieren. Sin desmerecer a ninguno de ellos, algunos demuestran mayor eficacia en situaciones de inestabilidad suaves; otros lo son cuando el vehículo llega a sus límites de adhesión, y los hay cuando la aceleración lateral supera un cierto valor. Por esta razón, se recomienda el uso de más de un sistema de control para beneficiarse de las ventajas de sus diferentes conceptos de control. Sin embargo, la combinación de más de un controlador de estabilidad de un vehículo, no es tarea fácil, dado que podrían producirse conflictos entre los diferentes controladores, así como la superposición de los diferentes objetivos de control. Adicionalmente, una simple combinación podría llevar a una mayor complejidad del hardware y el software usados, debido a la posible repetición de sensores y actuadores, y en consecuencia a una complejidad de cables de conexión. Por ello, se han propuesto sistemas de Dinámica de Vehículos de Control Integral (IVDC), para proporcionar una integración cuidadosamente diseñada con el objetivo de coordinar los diferentes sistemas de control del chasis. De esta manera, los conflictos de control podrían ser eliminados, y los resultados podrían reforzarse aún más mediante tal combinación. Igualmente el coste y la complejidad del sistema podrían reducirse debido al posible uso compartido de sensores, actuadores, unidades de control y cables. Recientemente, los sistemas de IVDC han sido un tema de investigación recurrente, existiendo distintos sistemas en la literatura que han intentado controlar varias combinaciones de los citados controladores utilizando una variedad de técnicas de control, muchos de los cuales han mostrado resultados prometedores en la mejora del manejo del vehículo a través de los resultados de simulaciones. No obstante, estos sistemas eran manualmente diseñados y probados en un número limitado de maniobras y condiciones. Además, han sido testados en las mismas maniobras utilizadas para su dise˜no y, por tanto, su fiabilidad y previsibilidad son cuestionables. Por otra parte, los sistemas de control de estabilidad del vehículo son considerados como sistemas de seguridad crítica, donde cualquier error podría causar un accidente fatal. De este modo, como consecuencia de la imprecisión humana, un controlador diseñado manualmente que ha sido desarrollado a través de pruebas de situación limitada, es propenso a errores que generan deficiencias en ciertas zonas de control o a inexactitudes en las decisiones de los valores de control. Por otra parte, la selección manual del margen de control dedicado a cada sub-sistema integrado no asegura la optimización de las capacidades de los controladores. Además, dado que estos controladores son diseñados por el hombre, cualquier variación de las características del modelo del vehículo, como por ejemplo algo tan sencillo como el cambio en la rigidez de la suspensión, necesitaría de intervención humana para volver a calibrar o volver a ajustar manualmente el sistema con el objetivo de adaptarse a la variación realizada. Por lo tanto, en esta tesis se intentará reemplazar el conocimiento humano y los sistemas diseñados manualmente, por un sistema automatizado e inteligente, que autoconstruye el sistema de control sin intervención humana. Este método utilizará una red neuronal inteligente que aprende los valores óptimos de control a través de un algoritmo extenso de minería de datos. En consecuencia, se autoconstruye un controlador de lógica difusa que corrige la estabilidad del vehículo a través de un sistema activo de corrección de la entrada al volante y un sistema de control de ángulo de guiñada mediante los frenos. Las entradas de control de estos sistemas serán la velocidad del ángulo de guiñada y el ángulo de deslizamiento lateral, siendo los controladores más eficaces presentados en la literatura

Actuators for Intelligent Electric Vehicles

This book details the advanced actuators for IEVs and the control algorithm design. In the actuator design, the configuration four-wheel independent drive/steering electric vehicles is reviewed. An in-wheel two-speed AMT with selectable one-way clutch is designed for IEV. Considering uncertainties, the optimization design for the planetary gear train of IEV is conducted. An electric power steering system is designed for IEV. In addition, advanced control algorithms are proposed in favour of active safety improvement. A supervision mechanism is applied to the segment drift control of autonomous driving. Double super-resolution network is used to design the intelligent driving algorithm. Torque distribution control technology and four-wheel steering technology are utilized for path tracking and adaptive cruise control. To advance the control accuracy, advanced estimation algorithms are studied in this book. The tyre-road peak friction coefficient under full slip rate range is identified based on the normalized tyre model. The pressure of the electro-hydraulic brake system is estimated based on signal fusion. Besides, a multi-semantic driver behaviour recognition model of autonomous vehicles is designed using confidence fusion mechanism. Moreover, a mono-vision based lateral localization system of low-cost autonomous vehicles is proposed with deep learning curb detection. To sum up, the discussed advanced actuators, control and estimation algorithms are beneficial to the active safety improvement of IEVs

Model predictive torque vectoring control with active trail-braking for electric vehicles

In this work we present the development of a torque vectoring controller for electric vehicles. The proposed controller distributes drive/brake torque between the four wheels to achieve the desired handling response and, in addition, intervenes in the longitudinal dynamics in cases where the turning radius demand is infeasible at the speed at which the vehicle is traveling. The proposed controller is designed in both the Linear and Nonlinear Model Predictive Control framework, which have shown great promise for real time implementation the last decades. Hence, we compare both controllers and observe their ability to behave under critical nonlinearities of the vehicle dynamics in limit handling conditions and constraints from the actuators and tyre-road interaction. We implement the controllers in a realistic, high fidelity simulation environment to demonstrate their performance using CarMaker and Simulink

Lateral and Longitudinal Coordinated Control of Intelligent Vehicle Based on High-Precision Dynamics Model under High-Speed Limit Condition

This study focuses on improving the trajectorytracking control for intelligent vehicles in high-speed and largecurvature limit conditions. To this end, a high-precision fivedegree-of-freedom (5-DOF) dynamics model (HPM) that incorporates suspension characteristics is introduced. Furthermore, acoordinated lateral and longitudinal control system is developed.The lateral model predictive control (MPC) involves two crucialstages: initially, a desired trajectory with associated speed datais generated based on path curvature. Subsequently, using thehigh-precision 5-DOF dynamics model, an objective functionis formulated to minimize the difference between the vehicle’scurrent state and the desired state. This process determines theoptimal front wheel steering angle, taking into account vehiclepositional constraints and steering limitations. Additionally, adouble proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller for longitudinal control adjusts the throttle and brake pressure basedon real-time position and speed data, ensuring integrated controlover both lateral and longitudinal movements. The effectivenessof this approach is confirmed through real vehicle testing andsimulation. Results show that the high-precision 5-DOF dynamicsmodel markedly enhances the accuracy of vehicle response modeling, and the coordinated control system successfully executesprecise trajectory tracking. In extreme scenarios of high-speedand large curvature, the enhanced model substantially improvestrajectory accuracy and driving stability, thus promoting safevehicle operation

Lateral and Longitudinal Coordinated Control of Intelligent Vehicle Based on High-Precision Dynamics Model under High-Speed Limit Condition

This study focuses on improving the trajectorytracking control for intelligent vehicles in high-speed and largecurvature limit conditions. To this end, a high-precision fivedegree-of-freedom (5-DOF) dynamics model (HPM) that incorporates suspension characteristics is introduced. Furthermore, acoordinated lateral and longitudinal control system is developed.The lateral model predictive control (MPC) involves two crucialstages: initially, a desired trajectory with associated speed datais generated based on path curvature. Subsequently, using thehigh-precision 5-DOF dynamics model, an objective functionis formulated to minimize the difference between the vehicle’scurrent state and the desired state. This process determines theoptimal front wheel steering angle, taking into account vehiclepositional constraints and steering limitations. Additionally, adouble proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller for longitudinal control adjusts the throttle and brake pressure basedon real-time position and speed data, ensuring integrated controlover both lateral and longitudinal movements. The effectivenessof this approach is confirmed through real vehicle testing andsimulation. Results show that the high-precision 5-DOF dynamicsmodel markedly enhances the accuracy of vehicle response modeling, and the coordinated control system successfully executesprecise trajectory tracking. In extreme scenarios of high-speedand large curvature, the enhanced model substantially improvestrajectory accuracy and driving stability, thus promoting safevehicle operation