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The emergence of new electric vehicle (EV) corner concepts with in-wheel motors offers numerous opportunities to improve handling, comfort, and stability. This study investigates the potential of controlling the vehicle's corner positioning by changing wheel toe and camber angles. A high-fidelity simulation environment was used to evaluate the proposed solution. The effects of the placement of the corresponding actuators and the actuation point on the force required during cornering were investigated. The results demonstrate that the toe angle, compared to the camber angle, offers more effect for improving the vehicle dynamics. The developed direct yaw rate control with four toe actuators improves stability, has a positive effect on comfort, and contributes to the development of new active corner architectures for electric and automated vehicles.

This paper presents an innovative combined control using Model Predictive Control (MPC) to enhance the stability of automated vehicles. It integrates path tracking and vehicle stability control into a single controller to satisfy both objectives. The stability enhancement is achieved by computing two expected yaw rates based on the steering wheel angle and on lateral acceleration into the MPC model. The vehicle's stability is determined by comparing the two reference yaw rates to the actual one. Thus, the MPC controller prioritises path tracking or vehicle stability by actively varying the cost function weights depending on the vehicle states. Using two industrial standard manoeuvres, i.e. moose test and double lane change, we demonstrate a significant improvement in path tracking and vehicle stability of the proposed MPC over eight benchmark controllers in the high-fidelity simulation environment.

Research of the past century has demonstrated that wheel camber regulation provides great potential to improve vehicle safety and performance. This led to the development of various prototypes of the camber mechanisms over the last decade. An overview of the existing prototypes is discussed in the presented paper. Most of the investigations related to camber control cover open-loop maneuvers to evaluate a vehicle response. However, a driver’s perception and his reaction can be the most critical factor during vehicle operation. Therefore, the research goal of the presented study is to assess an influence of active camber control on steering feel and driving performance using a driving simulator. In the proposed investigation, a dSPACE ASM vehicle model has been extended by introducing advanced models of steering system and active camber regulation. The steering system describes dynamics of steering components (upper and lower columns, torsion bar, steering rack and others).

Active vehicle safety and driving assistance systems can be made more efficient, more robust and less complex if wheel load information would be available. Although this information could be determined via numerous different methods, due to various reasons, no commercially feasible approach has yet been introduced. In this paper the approach of bearing load estimation is topic of interest. Using the bearing for load measurement has considerable advantages making it commercially attractive as: i) it can be performed on a non-rotating part, ii) all wheel loads can be measured and iii) usually the bearing serves the entire lifetime of the vehicle. This paper proposes a novel approach for the determination of wheel loading. This new approach, based on the strain variance on the surface of the bearing outer ring, is tested on a dedicated bearing test setup.

Anti-lock braking functions of electric vehicles with individual wheel drive can be effectively realized through the operation of in-wheel or on-board motors in the pure regenerative mode or in the blending mode with conventional electro-hydraulic anti-lock braking system (ABS). The regenerative ABS has an advantage in simultaneous improvement of active safety, energy efficiency, and driving comfort. In scope of this topic, the presented work introduces results of experimental investigations on a pure electric ABS installed on an electric powered sport utility vehicle (SUV) test platform with individual switch reluctance on-board electric motors transferring torque to the each wheel through the single-speed gearbox and half-shaft. The study presents test results of the vehicle braking on inhomogeneous low-friction surface for the case of ABS operation with front electric motors.

The paper introduces the results of the development of anti-lock brake system (ABS) for full electric vehicle with individually controlled near-wheel motors. The braking functions in the target vehicle are realized with electro-hydraulic decoupled friction brake system and electric motors operating in a braking mode. The proposed ABS controller is based on the direct slip and velocity control and includes several main blocks for computing of predictive (feedforward) and reactive (feedback) brake torque, wheel slip observer, slip target adaptation, and the algorithm of brake blending between friction brakes and electric motors. The functionality of developed ABS has been investigated on the HIL test rig for straight-line braking manoeuvres on different surfaces with variation of initial velocity. The obtained experimental results have been compared with the operation of baseline algorithm of a hydraulic ABS and have demonstrated a marked effect in braking performance.

Nowadays there is a tendency to implement various active vehicle subsystems in a modern vehicle to improve its stability of motion, handling, comfort and other operation characteristics. Since each vehicle subsystem has own limits to generate supporting demand, their potential impact on vehicle dynamics should be analyzed for steady-state and transient vehicle behavior. Moreover, the additional research issue is the assessment of total energy consumption and energy losses, because a stand-alone operation of each vehicle subsystem will provide different impact on vehicle dynamics and they have own energy demands. The vehicle configuration includes (i) friction brake system, (ii) individual-wheel drive electric motors, (iii) wheel steer actuators, (iv) camber angle actuators, (v) dynamic tire pressure system and (vi) actuators generating additional normal forces through external spring, damping and stabilizer forces. A passenger car is investigated using commercial software.

During vehicle operation, the control objectives of stability, handling, energy consumption and comfort have different priorities, which are determined by road conditions and driver behavior. To achieve better operation characteristics of vehicle, coordinated control of vehicle subsystems is actively used. The fact of more active vehicle subsystems in a modern passenger car provides more flexibility for vehicle control and control algorithm development. Since the modern vehicle can be considered as over-actuated system, control allocation is an effective control technique to solve such kind of problem. This paper describes coordination of frictional brake system, individual-wheel drive electric motors, active front and rear steering, active camber mechanisms and tyre pressure control system. To coordinate vehicle subsystems, optimization-based control allocation with dynamic weights is applied.

Research and development tools for investigations of various facets of braking processes cover three major groups of devices: Dynamometer test rigs: assessment of performance, durability, life cycle and others; Tribometer test rigs: definition of parameters of friction and wear; Hardware-in-the-loop: estimation of functional properties of controlled braking. A combination of the listed devices allows to research complex phenomena related to braking systems. The presented work discusses a novel approach of test rig fusion, namely the combination of a brake dynamometer and hardware in the loop test rig. First investigations have been done during the operation of the anti-lock braking system (ABS) system to demonstrate the functionality of the approach.

Stability of motion, turnability, mobility and fuel consumption of all-wheel drive terrain vehicles strongly depends on engine power distribution among the front and rear driving axles and then between the left and right wheels of each axle. This paper considers kinematic discrepancy, which characterizes the difference of the theoretical velocities of the front and rear wheels, as the main factor that influences power distribution among the driving axles/wheels of vehicles with positively locked front and rear axles. The paper presents a new algorithm which enables minimization of the kinematic discrepancy factor for the improvement of AWD terrain vehicle dynamics while keeping up with minimal power losses for tire slip. Three control modes associated with gear ratio control of the front and rear driving axles are derived to provide the required change in kinematic discrepancy. Computer simulation results are presented for different scenarios of terrain and road conditions.

One of the most important challenges for electronic stability control (ESC) systems is the identification and monitoring of tire rolling environment, especially actual tire-road friction parameters. The presented research considers an advanced variant of the ESC system deducing the mentioned factors based on intelligent methods as fuzzy sets. The paper includes: Overview of key issues in prototyping the algorithms of Electronic Stability Control. Case study for vehicle model. Procedures for monitoring of tire rolling environment: theoretical backgrounds, computing methods, fuzzy input and output variables, fuzzy inference systems, interface with ESC algorithm. Case study for ESC control algorithm. Examples of simulation using Hardware-in-the-Loop procedures. The proposed approach can be widely used for the next-generation of ESC devices having the close integration with Intelligent Transport Systems.

Development of anti-lock brake system (ABS) for motorcycles needs specific approaches to the control of movement of a wheel. The well developed ABS control principles for cars or trucks cannot be automatically applied to motorcycles. In this connection, an alternative strategy of pre-extreme ABS control has been researched and simulated. Its aim is to ensure the wheel operation in pre-extreme, stable area of “coefficient of longitudinal force - wheel slip” dependence. MATLAB software and specially created software have been used for the simulation of single-channel and two-channel ABS systems. This simulation has verified that the pre-extreme ABS algorithm guarantees the high braking efficiency and motorcycle stability consequently.