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This paper describes a driving controller to improve vehicle lateral stability and maneuverability for a six wheel driving / six wheel steering (6WD/6WS) vehicle. The driving controller consists of upper and lower level controller. The upper level controller based on sliding control theory determines front, middle steering angle, additional net yaw moment and longitudinal net force according to reference velocity and steering of a manual driving, remote control and autonomous controller. The lower level controller takes desired longitudinal net force, yaw moment and tire force information as an input and determines additional front steering angle and distributed longitudinal tire force on each wheel. This controller is based on optimal distribution control and has considered the friction circle related to vertical tire force and friction coefficient acting on the road and tire.

This paper describes an investigation into multi-core processing architecture for implementation of a Unified Chassis Control (UCC) algorithm. The multi-core architecture is suggested to reduce the operating load and maximization of the reliability to improve of the UCC system performance. For the purpose of this study, the proposed multi-core architecture supports distributed control with analytical and physical redundancy capabilities. In this paper, the UCC algorithm embedded in electronic control unit (ECU) is comprised of three parts; a supervisor, a main controller, and fault detection/ isolation/ tolerance control (FDI/FTC). An ECU is configured by three processors, and a control area network (CAN) is also implemented for hardware-in-the-loop (HILS) evaluation. Two types of multi-core architectures such as distributed processing, and triple voting are implemented to investigate the performance and reliability.

Creep groan is a low frequency noise generated by the stick-slip phenomenon that occurs when moderate brake pressure is applied between the surfaces of the brake disc and brake pad in a low-speed vehicle. It generally occurs when a vehicle is starting to move from a complete static condition or as it slowly comes to a stop when driving. Transfer path analysis (TPA) is a technique than not only provides a methodical approach to trace the flow of vibro-acoustic energy but also allows users to analyze structure-borne noise contributions. Thus, TPA is extensively used to scrutinize creep groan. The primary purpose of this paper is to empirically identify and evaluate the influences of the environmental conditions, chassis system, and brake material on creep groan using the TPA technique. Once the route that contributes the most vibro-acoustic energy from the source to the receiver is identified through TPA, a mass is added on that specific path to observe the changes in creep groan.

This paper presents the design and evaluation of an emergency driving support (EDS) algorithm. The control objective is to assist driver's collision avoidance maneuver to overcome a hazardous situation. To support driver, electrically controllable chassis components such as motor driven power steering (MDPS) and differential braking and surrounding sensor systems such as radar and camera are used. The EDS algorithm is designed for 3 parts: monitoring, decision, and control. The proposed EDS algorithm recognizes a collision danger using minimum lateral acceleration to avoid collision and time-to-collision (TTC) and driver's intention using sensor systems. The control mode is determined using the indices from monitoring process and the collision avoidance trajectory is derived with trapezoidal acceleration profile (TAP).

This paper describes a driving control algorithm based on a skid steering for a Robotic Vehicle with Articulated Suspension (RVAS). The RVAS is a kind of unmanned ground vehicle based on a skid steering using independent in-wheel drive at each wheel. The driving control algorithm consists of four parts: a speed controller for following a desired speed, a lateral motion controller that computes a yaw moment input to track a desired yaw rate or a desired trajectory according to the control mode, a longitudinal tire force distribution algorithm that determines an optimal desired longitudinal tire force and a wheel torque controller that determines a wheel torque command at each wheel in order to keep the slip ratio at each wheel below a limit value as well as to track the desired tire force. The longitudinal and vertical tire force estimators are required for the optimal tire force distribution and wheel slip control.

This paper describes the safety test simulation of electrical shock of FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicles) on human. Since FCV operates with high voltage, it is very dangerous to touch on or near the conductive parts. It may hurt human even when conductive parts are surrounded by protectors such as barriers or enclosures. Also various modes of a vehicle, such as driving, idle and failure, can affect electrical shock. It is difficult to carry out field experiments about electrical shock for FCV because of many combinations which depend on the operating voltages and the modes of a vehicle. And electrical safety of FCV must be verified before the manufacturing process. These are the main purposes of this study. MATLAB Simulink is the tool to conduct the simulation. All of the electronic devices in an FCV and a human body were modeled to measure current through human body when human touches on FCV. We performed the simulation with respect to driving, idle and failure mode.

This paper presents a real-time vehicle powertrain simulator and a pseudo real-time multi-vehicle platoon simulator. The developed powertrain simulator simulates the complex vehicle powertrain dynamics, including detailed shifting transients, in the PC environment in real time. The driver input is provided using a throttle pedal interfaced using the game port. The processor requirements vary depending on the simulation options selected. In the basic version, this requirement is only approximately 20% of a 300 MHz Pentium II- based PC. For multi-vehicle platoon simulation, a network configuration is proposed. It links several individual powertrain simulations via the TCP/IP network. This network platoon simulation is also linked to a server which graphically displays the multi-vehicle platoon operation. In this network configuration, due to a random delay in data transfer the simulation time kernel is made to lag real time.

In this paper, we investigate a method to calculate the dynamic instability of a disc brake system and propose a criterion of design modification. To estimate dynamic instability, complex eigenvalue analysis is performed for a brake system and the contribution factor of each component to an unstable complex mode is calculated using complex MAC(Modal Assurance Criteria). From the contribution factors, the most influential component is determined so as to decouple the complex mode, and its geometry is modified in view of the strain energy distribution. Evaluation through noise dynamometer tests verifies the reduction of squeal noises, and this is in accordance with the results of complex eigenvalue analysis.

This paper describes development and performance verification of a driving control algorithm for a 6 wheel driving and 6 wheel steering (6WD/6WS) vehicle using a real-time simulator. This control algorithm is developed to improve vehicle stability and maneuverability under high speed driving conditions. The driving controller consists of stability decision, upper, lower level and wheel slip controller. The stability decision algorithm determines desired longitudinal acceleration and reference yaw rate in order to maintain lateral and roll stability using G-vectoring method. Upper level controller is designed to obtain reference longitudinal net force, yaw moment and front/middle steering angles. The longitudinal net force is calculated to satisfy the reference longitudinal acceleration by the PID control theory. The reference yaw moment is determined to satisfy the reference yaw rate using sliding control theory. Lower level controller determines distributed tractive/braking torques.

This paper presents the integrated chassis control(ICC) of four-wheel drive(4WD), electronic stability control(ESC), electronic control suspension(ECS), and active roll stabilizer(ARS) for limit handling. The ICC consists of three layers: 1) a supervisor determines target vehicle states; 2) upper level controller calculates generalized forces; 3) lower level controller, which is contributed in this paper, optimally allocates the generalized force to chassis modules. The lower level controller consists of two integrated parts, 1) longitudinal force control part (4WD/ESC) and 2) vertical force control part (ECS/ARS). The principal concept of both algorithms is optimally utilizing the capability of the each tire by monitoring tire saturation, with tire combined slip. By monitoring tire saturation, 4WD/ESC integrated system minimizes the sum of the tire saturation, and ECS/ARS integrated system minimizes the variance of the tire saturation.

This paper describes an optimal torque vectoring strategy for 4WD electric vehicles (EV) in order to improve vehicle maneuverability, lateral stability and at the same time prevent vehicle rollover. The 4WD EV is driven using an in-line motor at a front driving shaft and in-wheel motors at rear wheels. Many previous studies have been conducted to determine a desired traction force and a yaw moment input for human driver's intention or vehicle stability control. The driving control algorithm consists of three parts: a supervisory controller that determines the control mode, admissible control region, and desired dynamics, such as the desired speed and yaw rate, an upper-level controller that computes the traction force input and yaw moment input to track the desired dynamics and an optimal torque vectoring algorithm that determines actuator commands, such as the front in-line motor, rear in-wheel motors and independent brake modules.

In this paper, joint modelling techniques are investigated in a box beam T-joint, which may be viewed as a simplified model of typical vehicle body joints. For low-frequency vibration analysis, joints are typically modelled by torsional spring elements and the importance of reasonable spring rates has been noted in many investigations. The effects of the joint branch lengths on the spring rates are investigated and it is shown that converging results are obtained only with proper branch lengths. We also discuss some facts to consider for estimating consistently the spring rates when the branches of T-joints meet at oblique angles. Finally, a possibility of using short beam elements instead of conventional spring elements to account for the joint flexibility is examined. The consequence of short beam modelling is that the sensitivity analysis on the natural frequencies with respect to the joint flexibility can be easily performed.

Compliance elements such as bushings of a suspension system play a crucial role in determining the ride and handling characteristics of the vehicle. In this research, a general procedure for the optimum design of compliance elements to meet various design targets is proposed. Based on the assumption that the displacements of elastokinematic behavior of a suspension system under external forces are very small, linearized elastokinematic equations in terms of infinitesimal displacements and joint reaction forces are derived. Directly differentiating the linear elastokinematic equations with respect to design variables associated with bushing stiffness, sensitivity equations are obtained. The design process for determining the bushing stiffness using sensitivity analysis and optimization technique is demonstrated.