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The prevention and control of brake judder and its various negative effects has been a key target of vehicle production. One of the effects is the steering wheel vibration during vehicle braking. Experimental and theoretical investigation into “steering wheel vibration due to brake judder” is extensively presented in this paper. The vehicle road test is carried out under controlled braking conditions. During the test, the accelerations of brake caliper assembly, suspension low and upper control arm, steering arm, tie rod and steering wheel, left and right wheel rotary speed, are measured by a multi-channel data acquisition system. The data processing focuses on order tracking analysis and transfer path analysis to work out the related resonant components. A disc brake assembly, with deliberately designed disc thickness variation and surface run-out combinations, is tested on a brake dynamometer.

The price of fossil fuels and the increasing inexorable energy crisis have become vital issues for everyone. Tongji University EconoPower Racing Team was established to participate in the “Honda EconoPower Cup” annually. Every contestant in the competition must finish a certain distance in the fixed time, with the gasoline supplied by the committee. After that the committee will measure the fuel consumption of every team and calculate the distance per liter fuel (the farther the better) to determine the champion. In order to enhance the EP vehicle's achievement we've made some improvements, such as framework, body, engine's optimization and so on. In this passage we mainly state some details of our research approaches in framework, steering, transmission, shape and driving strategy. The main technologies were: friction reduction, lightweight, enhancement of power train efficiency, tire selection and driving strategy.

This paper describes a methodology to estimate yaw rate of a 4-wheel-drive electric vehicle, in which wheel driven torque can be independently controlled by electric motor. Without non-driven wheels it would be difficult to estimate the vehicle yaw rate precisely, especially when some of the four wheels have large slip ratio. Therefore, a model based estimation methodology is put forward, which uses four wheel speeds, steering wheel angle and vehicle lateral acceleration as input signals. Firstly the yaw rate is estimated through three different ways considering both vehicle kinematics and vehicle dynamics. Vehicle kinematics based method has good estimation accuracy even when the vehicle has large lateral acceleration. However, it can not provide satisfying results when the wheel has large slip ratio. In contrast, vehicle dynamics based method is not so sensitive to wheel slip ratio.

Electric Power Steering (EPS) is the actuator of several lateral-dynamic-related Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). A driving simulator with EPS will be much helpful for the ADAS development. However, if a real EPS is used in the driving simulator, it is quite difficult to realize the road reaction force accurately and responsively. To overcome this weakness, a virtual EPS platform is established. The virtual EPS platform contains two parts: one is the vehicle and EPS model, the other is the force feedback actuator (FFA) of the Steer-by-Wire (SBW) system. The FFA is an interface between the driver and the EPS/vehicle model. The reactive torque of the FFA is obtained based on the models. Meanwhile, the input of the EPS model is the steering angle of the FFA. Comparing to a real EPS, the virtual EPS platform has a problem of instability because of the actuator lag of the FFA. Therefore, a damping control method is applied to make the system stable.

Path following controller of a six-wheel skid-steering vehicle is designed. The vehicle speed is controlled through engine speed control and the lateral vehicle steering is controlled through hydraulic braking on each side. Contrary to the common approaches considering non-holonomic constraints, vehicle dynamic characteristics and nonlinear characteristics of tire are considered. A hierarchical control structure is applied in this vehicle control system. The kinematic controller works out the reference yaw rate and reference vehicle speed. And a robust dynamic controller tracks the reference signal. In addition, the dynamic controller takes actuator ability into account.

In this paper, a novel method is proposed to establish the vehicle yaw stability criterion based on the sideslip angle-yaw rate (β-r) phase plane method. First, nonlinear two degrees of freedom vehicle analysis model is established by adopting the Magic Formula of nonlinear tire model. Then, according to the model in the Matlab/Simulink environment, the β-r phase plane is gained. Emphatically, the effects of different driving conditions (front wheels steering angle, road adhesion coefficient and speed) on the stability boundaries of the phase plane are analyzed. Through a large number of simulation analysis, results show that there are two types of phase plane: curve stability region and diamond stability region, and the judgment method of the vehicle stability domain type under different driving conditions is solved.

Path tracking is the rudimentary capability and primary task for autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs). In this paper, a novel four-wheel-independent-steering (4WIS) and four-wheel-independent-drive (4WID) electric vehicle (EV) is proposed which is equipped with steer-by-wire (SBW) system. For path-tracking controller design, the nonlinear vehicle model with 2 degrees of freedom (DOF) is built utilizing the nonlinear Dugoff tire model. The nonlinear dynamic model of SBW system is conducted as well considering the external disturbances. As to the path-tracking controller design, an integrated four-wheel steering (4WS) and direct yaw-moment control (DYC) system is designed based on the model predictive control (MPC) algorithm to track the target path described by desired yaw angle and lateral displacement. Then, the fast terminal sliding mode controller (FTSMC) is proposed for the SBW system to suppress disturbances.

In the recent years, the interaction between human driver and Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) has gradually aroused people’s concern. As a result, the concept of personalized ADAS is being put forward. As an important system of ADAS, Lane Keeping Assistance System (LKAS) also attracts great attention. To achieve personalized LKAS, driver lane keeping characteristic (DLKC) indices which could distinguish different driver lane keeping behavior should be researched. However, there are few researches on DLKC indices for personalized LKAS. Although there are many researches on modeling driver steering behavior, these researches are not sufficient to obtain DLKC indices. One reason is that most of researches are for double lane change behavior which is different from driver lane keeping behavior. The other reason is that the researches on driver lane keeping behavior only provide model structure and rarely discuss identification procedure such as how to select suitable data.

The Linear Internal Combustion Engine-Linear Generator Integrated System (LICELGIS) is different from conventional crank-based engine for reducing frictional losses by eliminating the crankshaft. Thus, the LICELGIS piston stroke is not constrained geometrically and the system compression ratio is variable. During steady-state operation, the LICELGIS converts the fuel chemical energy into electric power with piston assembly reciprocating motion, which can be used as a range-extender in hybrid electric vehicles. The LICELGIS scavenging process is prerequisite and key for the system steady-state operation, which has remarkable influence on mixture gas and, eventually, on engine combustion performance. In order to achieve high scavenging performance, a LICELGIS is investigated in this paper. The LICELGIS motion characteristics and scavenging process were analyzed.

The electromagnetic valve actuator (EMVA) is considered a technological solution for decoupling between crankshaft and camshaft to improve engine performance, emissions, and fuel efficiency. Conventional EMVA consists of two electromagnets, an armature, and two springs has been proved to have the drawbacks of fixed lift, impact noise, complex control method and large power consumption. This paper proposes a new type of EMVA that uses voice coil motor (VCM) as electromagnetic valve actuator. This new camless valvetrain (VEMA) is characterized by simple structure, flexible controllable and low actuating power. VCM provides an almost flat force versus stroke curve that is very useful for high precision trajectory control to achieve soft landing within simple control algorithm.

In order to improve the robustness and stability of autonomous vehicle at high speed, a path tracking approach which combines front steering and differential braking is investigated in this paper. A bicycle model with 3-DOFs is established and a linear time-varying predictive model using front steering as its control input can be derived. Based on model predictive theory, the path tracking issue using linear time-varying model predictive control can be transformed into an online quadratic programming problem with constraints. The expected front steering angle can be obtained from online moving optimization. Then the direct yawing control is adopted to treat two types of differential braking control. The first one investigates steady-state gain of yaw rate in linear 2-DOFs vehicle model, and designs a stable differential braking controller which is based on reference yaw rate.

Vehicle sideslip angle is significant for electronic stability control devices and hard to estimate due to the nonlinear and uncertain vehicle and tire dynamics. In this paper, based on the two track vehicle dynamic model considering the tire pneumatic trail variation, the vehicle sideslip angle estimation method was proposed. First, the extra steering angle of each wheel caused by kinematics and compliance characteristics of the steering system and suspension system was analyzed. The steering angle estimation method was designed. Since the pneumatic trail would vary with different tire slip angle, distances between the center of gravity (COG) and front&rear axle also change with the tire slip angle. Then, based on the dynamic pneumatic trail and estimated steering angle, we modified the traditional two track vehicle dynamic model using a brush tire model. This model matches the vehicle dynamics more accurately.

The integrated control system which combines the differential drive assisted steering (DDAS) and the direct yaw moment control (DYC) for the distributed drive electric vehicle (DDEV) is studied. A handling improvement algorithm for the normal cornering maneuvers is proposed based on motion tracking control. Considering the ideal assistant power character curves at different velocities, an open-loop DDAS control strategy is developed to respond the driver’s demand of steering wheel torque. The DYC strategy contains the steering angle feedforward and the yaw rate feedback. The steering angle feedforward control strategy is employed to improve yaw rate steady gain of vehicle. The maximum feedforward coefficients at different velocities are obtained from the constraint of the motor external characteristic, final feedforward coefficients are calculated according to the ideal assistant power character curve of the DDAS.

The coordinated control of stability and steering systems in collision avoidance steering evasion has been widely studied in vehicle active safety area, but the studies are mainly aimed at autonomous vehicle without driver or conventional combustion engine vehicle. This paper focuses on the control of hybrid vehicle integrated with rear hub in emergency steering evasion situation, and considering the driver’s characteristics. First, the mathematics model of vehicle dynamics and driver has been given. Second, based on the planned steering evasion path, the model predictive control method is presented for achieving higher evasion path tracking accuracy under driver’s steering input. The prediction model includes an adaptive preview distance driver model and a vehicle dynamics model to predict the driver input and the vehicle trajectory.

The unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is applied to estimate the real vehicle velocity. The velocity estimation algorithm uses lateral acceleration, longitudinal acceleration and yaw rate as inputs. The non-linear vehicle model and Dugoff tire model are built as the estimation model of UKF. Some parameters of Dugoff tire model and vehicle, which can't be measured directly, are identified by the particle swarm optimization (PSO). For the purpose of evaluating the algorithm, the estimation values of UKF are compared with measurements of the Inertial and GPS Navigation system. Besides, the real time property of UKF is tested by xPC Target, which is a real-time software environment from MathWorks. The result of the real vehicle experiment demonstrates the availability of the UKF and PSO in vehicle velocity estimation.

In this paper we present a path following control design for a six-wheel skid-steering vehicle. Contrary to the common approaches that impose non-holonomic constraints, a dynamic vehicle model is established based on a pseudo-static tire model, which uses tire slip to determine tire forces. Our control system admits a modular structure, where a motion controller computes the reference vehicle yaw rate and reference vehicle speed and a dynamics controller tracks these signals. A robust nonlinear control law is designed to track the reference wheel speeds determined by the dynamics controller with proved stability properties. Saturated control techniques are employed in designing the reference yaw rate, which ensures the magnitude of the reference yaw rate does not violate the constraint from the ground-tire adhesion. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed path following control design.

This article conducts a research on the active control differential (ACD) yaw moment stability control for central motor driven automobiles. By calculation, the active control differential yaw moment generation ability which is limited by the maximum differential twist ratio and the motor output torque is not enough compared with traditional Electronic Stability Program (ESP). A Matlab and CarSim joint simulation is applied on double lane change and sine wave steering input condition, through which the active control differential effect is analyzed. It is concluded that yaw moment control using active control differential has improved the steering sensitivity and yaw rate tracking effect to some extent in double lane change test and it also has been verified that it works effectively to keep the stability of the vehicle in sine wave test.

Steering of skid-steered vehicles without steering mechanism is realized by differential drive/brake torque generated from in-wheel motors at left and right sides. Compared to traditional Ackerman-steered vehicles, skid-steered vehicles consume much more energy while steering due to greater steering resistance. Torque allocation is critical to the distributed drive skid-steered vehicles, since it influences not only steering performance, but also energy efficiency. In this paper, the dynamic characteristics of six-wheeled skid-steered vehicles were analyzed, and a 2-DOF vehicle model was established, which is important for both motion tracking control and torque allocation. Furthermore, a hierarchical controller was proposed. Considering tire force characteristics and tire slip, the upper layer calculates the generalized force and desired yaw moment based on anti-windup PI (proportion-integral) control method.

As one of the key technologies in autonomous driving, the lateral planning module guides the lateral movement during the driving process. An integrated lateral planning module should consider the non-holonomic constraints of a vehicle, the optimization of the generated trajectory and the applicability to various scenarios. However, the current lateral planning methods can only meet parts of these requirements. In order to satisfy all the performance requirements above, a novel Potential Field (PF) based lateral planning method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a PF model is built to describe the potential risk of the traffic entities, including the obstacles, road boundaries and lines. The potential fields of these traffic entities are determined by their properties and the traffic regulations. Secondly, the planning algorithm is presented, which comprises three modules: state prediction, state search and trajectory generation.

To overcome the shortcoming that vehicles with multiple steering modes need to switch steering modes at parking or very low speeds, a dynamic switch method of steering modes based on MOEA/D (Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm Based on Decomposition) was proposed for 4WID-4WIS (Four Wheel Independent Drive-Four Wheel Independent Steering) electric vehicle, considering the smoothness of dynamic switch, the lateral stability of the vehicle and the energy economy of tires. First of all, the vehicle model of 4WID-4WIS was established, and steering modes were introduced and analyzed. Secondly, the conditions for the dynamic switch of steering modes were designed with the goal of stability and safety. According to different constraints, the control strategy was formulated to obtain the target angle of the active wheels. Then aiming at the smoothness of the dynamic switch, the active wheel angle trajectory was constructed based on the B-spline theory.