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To address the current situation of the limited driver-vehicle cooperative steering actuation structure, this paper proposes a feasible driver-vehicle shared steering control actuation architecture based on the differential steering. Firstly, a shared steering execution architecture is established, which contains traditional steering system controlled by human driver and differential steering system acting as the automatic execution system. In this paper, a specific driver-vehicle shared control architecture is established with the front-wheel hub motor-based differential steering system and a single-view angle based human driver model. Then, an upper-level sliding mode controller for path tracking is developed and implemented as the automatic steering system, and the driver-vehicle shared control is achieved by the proposed non-cooperative game model.

The driving range of the electric vehicle (EV) greatly restricts the development of EVs. The vehicles waste plenty of energy on account of automobiles frequently braking under the city cycle. The regenerative braking system can convert the braking kinetic energy into the electrical energy and then returns to the battery, so the energy regeneration could prolong theregenerative braking system. According to the characteristics of robustness in regenerative braking, both regenerative braking and friction braking based on fuzzy logic are assigned after the front-rear axle’s braking force is distributed to meet the requirement of braking security and high-efficient braking energy regeneration. Among the model, the vehicle model and the mechanical braking system is built by the CRUISE software. The paper applies the MATLAB/SIMULINK to establish a regenerative braking model, and then selects the UEDC city cycle for model co-simulation analysis.

A new electric power steering system (EPS) dynamic friction model based on normalized Bouc-Wen model is given, as well as its structure form and model features. In addition, experimental method is used to identify corresponding parameters. In order to improve road feel feedback, this paper analyzes the shortcoming of traditional constant friction compensation control method and proposes a variable friction compensation control method which the friction compensation current changes according to the assist characteristic gain. Through simulation and real vehicle test verification, variable friction compensation control method eliminates the effect of basic assist characteristic, and improves the driver’s road feel under high speed.

This paper presents a fault-tolerant control (FTC) algorithm for four-wheel independently driven and steered (4WID/4WIS) electric vehicle. The Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) algorithm is utilized in the fault detection (FD) module so as to estimate the in-wheel motor parameters, which could detect parameter variations caused by in-wheel motor fault. A motion controller based on sliding mode control (SMC) is able to compute the generalized forces/moments to follow the desired vehicle motion. By considering the tire adhesive limits, a reconfigurable control allocator optimally distributes the generalized forces/moments among healthy actuators so as to minimize the tire workloads once the actuator fault is detected. An actuator controller calculates the driving torques of the in-wheel motors and steering angles of the wheels in order to finally achieve the distributed tire forces. If one or more in-wheel motors lose efficacy, the FD module diagnoses the actuator failures first.

As a new form of electric vehicle, Four-wheel-independent electric vehicle with X-By-Wire (XBW) inherits all the advantages of in-wheel motor drive electric vehicles. The vehicle steering system is liberated from traditional mechanical steering mechanism and forms an advanced vehicle with all- wheel independent driving, braking and steering. Compared with conventional vehicles, it has more controllable degrees of freedom. The design of the integrated vehicle dynamics control systems helps to achieve the steering, driving and braking coordinated control and improves the vehicle's handling stability. In order to solve the problem of lacking of vehicle state information in the integrated control, some methods are used to estimate the vehicle state of four-wheel-independent electric vehicles with XBW. In order to improve the estimation accuracy, unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is used to estimate the vehicle state variables in this paper.

This paper presents an adaptive observer-based approach for the combined state estimation and active fault detection and isolation (FDI) of the individual-wheel-drive (IWD) vehicles. A 3-DOF vehicle model coupled with the Highway Safety Research Institute (HSRI) tire model is established and used as the observation model. Based on this model, the dual unscented Kalman filter (DUKF) technique is employed for the observer design to give fusion results of the interdependent state and parameter variables, which undergo nonlinear transformations, with the minimum square errors. Effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is examined and validated through co-simulation between MATLAB/Simulink and CarSim. The results demonstrate that the DUKF-based observer effectively filters the sensor signals, accurately obtains the longitudinal and lateral velocities, explicitly isolates the faulty wheel(s) and accurately estimates the actual torque(s) even with the presence of noise.

The passive fault-tolerant approach for four-wheel independently driven and steered (4WID/4WIS) electric vehicles has been investigated in this study. An adaptive control based passive fault-tolerant controller is designed to improve vehicle safety, performance and maneuverability when an actuator fault happens. The proposed fault tolerant control method consists of the following three parts: 1) a fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) module that monitors vehicle driving condition, detects and diagnoses actuator failures with the inequality constraints; 2) a motion controller that computes the generalized forces/moments to track the desired vehicle motion using Model Predictive Control (MPC); 3) a reconfigurable control allocator that redistributes the generalized forces/moments to four wheels with equality constrained optimization.

A full drive-by-wire electric vehicle, named Urban Future Electric Vehicle (UFEV) is developed, where the four wheels' traction and braking torques, four wheels' steering angles, and four active suspensions (in the future) are controlled independently. It is an ideal platform to realize the optimal vehicle dynamics, the marginal-stability and the energy-efficient control, it is also a platform for studying the advanced chassis control methods and their applications. A centralized control system of hierarchical structure for UFEV is proposed, which consist of Sensor Layer, Identification and Estimation Layer, Objective Control Layer, Forces and Motion Distribution Layer, Executive Layer. In the Identification and Estimation Layer, identification model is established by utilizing neural network algorithms to identify the driver characteristics. Vehicle state estimation and road identification of UFEV based on EKF and Fuzzy Logic Control methods is also conducted in this layer.

Pneumatic Electric Braking System (EBS) is getting widely spread for commercial vehicles. Pneumatic EBS improves the problem of slow response of traditional pneumatic braking system by implementing brake-by-wire. However, the time-delay response and hysteresis of some electro-pneumatic components and some other issues decrease the response and control accuracy of the pneumatic EBS.

The hybrid electric city bus, which consists of the electric motor and battery, is obviously different from the traditional buses. This paper focuses on optimizing the characteristics of the automatic mechanical transmission in hybrid electric city bus and does the following studies: firstly, in order to reduce the fuel consumption, the transmission ratio and some structural parameters are optimized with CRUISE software; secondly, the volume and weight of the transmission structure is reduced and optimized by numerical optimization approach, with the limitation of the structural reliability.

A fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) algorithm of 4WID/4WIS Electric Vehicles has been proposed in this study aiming to find the actuator faults. The 4WID/4WIS EV is one of the promising architectures for electric vehicle designs which is driven independently by four in-wheel motors and steered independently by four steering motors. The 4WID/4WIS EVs have many potential abilities in advanced vehicle control technologies, but diagnosis and accommodation of the actuator faults becomes a significant issue. The proposed FDD approach is an important part of the active fault tolerant control (AFTC) algorithm. The main objective of the FDD approach is to monitor vehicle states, find the faulty driving motor and then feedback fault information to the controller which would adopt appropriate control laws to accommodate the post-fault vehicle control system.

The passive fault-tolerant performance of the integrated vehicle controller (IVC) applied on 4WID/4WIS Electric Vehicles has been investigated in this study. The 4WID/4WIS EV is driven independently by four in-wheel motors and steered independently by four steering motors. Thanks to increased control flexibility of the over-actuated architecture, Control Allocation (CA) can be applied to control the 4WID/4WIS EVs so as to improve the handling and stability. Another benefit of the over-actuated architecture is that the 4WID/4WIS Electric Vehicle has sufficient redundant actuators to fight against the safety critical situation when one or more actuators fail.

A fault tolerant control (FTC) approach based on reconfigurable control allocation for four-wheel independently driven and steered (4WID/4WIS) electric vehicles against driving motor failures is proposed in order to improve vehicle safety, performance and maneuverability after the driving motor failures. The proposed fault tolerant control method consists of the following three parts: 1) a fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) module that monitors vehicle driving condition, detects and diagnoses actuator failures; 2) a motion controller that computes the generalized forces/moments to track the desired vehicle motion using model predictive control method; 3) a reconfigurable control allocator that optimally distributes the generalized forces/moments to four wheels aiming at minimizing the total tire usage. The FTC approach is based on the reconfigurable control allocation which reallocates the generalized forces/moments among healthy actuators once the actuator failures is detected.

Steering-By-Wire (SBW) system has advantages of advanced vehicle control system, which has no mechanical linkage to control the steering wheel and front wheels. It is possible to control the steering wheel actuator and front wheels actuator steering independently. The goal of this paper is to use a joystick to substitute the conventional steering wheel with typical vehicle SBW system and to study a variable steering ratio design method. A 2-DOF vehicle dynamic reference model is built and focused on the vehicle steering performance of drivers control joystick. By verifying the results with a hardware-in-the-loop simulation test bench, it shows this proposed strategy can improve vehicle maneuverability and comfort.

Steer-by-Wire system is capable of improving the performance of vehicle handling and stability, and assisting driving. It becomes a key technique to control front wheel angle and simulate the steering resistance delivered to the driver because of removing mechanical linkages between the steering wheel and the front wheels. This paper proposes a bilateral control method of steering wheel torque drive/pinion angle feedback, which is disaccustomed of controlling steering wheel block and steering actuator as master-slave plants. The pinion angle, steering wheel angle and its torque signals are used in the control logic without estimating or measuring the tire/road force. Simulations and vehicle experiments proceeded with this proposed method and the results confirmed that it achieves the bilateral control of the position and torque between the two plants.

This paper introduces the characteristics of the 4 wheel independent driving/4 wheel independent steering (4WID/4WIS) electric vehicle (EV). Models of Subsystems and the vehicle are constructed based on Matlab/simulink. The vehicle model allows the inputs of different drive torques and steer angles of four wheels. The dynamic characteristics of drive motors and steer motors are considered, and also it can reflect the vehicle longitudinal dynamics change due to the increase of the mass and inertia of the four wheels. Besides, drive mode selection function that is unique to this type vehicle is involved. Simulations and analyses of crab, oblique driving and zero radius turning which are the special conditions of 4WID/4WIS EV are conducted. The results show that the model can reflect the dynamic response characteristics. The model can be used to the simulation analyses of handling, stability, energy saving and control strategies verification of 4WID/4WIS EVs.

It is difficult to obtain state variables accurately or economically while vehicle is moving, however these state variables are significant for chassis control. Although many researches have been done, a complex model always leads to a control system with poor real-time performance, while simple model cannot show the real characteristics. So, in order to estimate the value of yaw rate and side slip angle accurately and sententiously, an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) observer is proposed, which is based on an ameliorated 2-DOF “bicycle model”. The EKF algorithm is achieved numerically and verified by the results from the real field test.

This paper presents a study on steering effort preference of Chinese drivers based on ADSL Driving Simulator. The results of the simulation test demonstrates that Chinese drivers' steering effort preference increases with vehicle speed, which is similar to European and Japanese drivers', but the mean preference effort level itself is lower than that of European and Japanese drivers' and this same steering effort preference increases obviously with lateral acceleration in linear region (lateral acceleration level lower than 0.3g) while not as evidently in nonlinear region (lateral acceleration level higher than 0.3g).

A closed-loop comprehensive evaluation and a test method for vehicle handling and stability have been studied by using development driving simulator. Simulator test scheme has been designed and carried out with 14 vehicle configurations, and subjective evaluation has been made for easy handling of vehicle by drivers. A closed-loop comprehensive evaluation index has been put forward considering the factors affecting vehicle handling and stability. The reliability of the index has been validated by driver's subjective evaluation. A driver/vehicle/ road closed-loop system model has been established, and the theoretical predictive evaluation has been carried out with 14 vehicle configurations. Simulation showed that similar result for both theoretical predictive evaluation and subjective evaluation.