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Performance testing and evaluation always plays an important role in the developmental process of a vehicle, which also applies to autonomous vehicles. The complex nature of an autonomous vehicle from architecture to functionality demands even more quality-and-quantity controlled testing and evaluation than ever before. Most of the existing testing methodologies are task-or-scenario based and can only support single or partial functional testing. These approaches may be helpful at the initial stage of autonomous vehicle development. However, as the integrated autonomous system gets mature, these approaches fall short of supporting comprehensive performance evaluation. This paper proposes a novel hierarchical and systematic testing and evaluation approach to bridge the above-mentioned gap.

The accuracy of tire forces directly affects the vehicle dynamics model precision and determines the ability of the model to develop the simulation platform or design the control strategy. In the high slip angle, due to the complex interactions at tire-road interfaces, the forces generated by the tires are high nonlinearity and uncertainty, which pose issues in calculating tire force accurately. This paper presents a hybrid physical and data-driven tire force calculation framework, which can satisfy the high nonlinearity and uncertainty condition, improve the model accuracy and effectively leverage prior knowledge of physical laws. The parameter identification for the physical tire model and the data-based compensation for the unknown errors between the physical tire model and actual tire force data are contained in this framework. First, the parameters in the selected combined-slip Burckhardt tire model are identified by the nonlinear least square method with tire test data.

Knowledge of the tire slip ratio can greatly improve vehicle longitudinal stability and its dynamic performance. Most conventional slip ratio observers were mainly designed based on input of non-driven wheel speed and estimated vehicle speed. However, they are not applicable for electric vehicles (EVs) with four in-wheel motors. Also conventional methods on speed estimation via integration of accelerometer signals can often lead to large offset by long-time integral calculation. Further, model uncertainties, including steady state error and unmodeled dynamics, are considered as additive disturbances, and may affect the stability of the system with estimated state error. This paper proposes a novel slip ratio observer based on input-to-state stability (ISS) method for electric vehicles with four-wheel independent driving motors.

The conventional radar modeling methods for automotive applications were either function-based or physics-based. The former approach was mainly abstracted as a solution of the intersection between geometric representations of radar beam and targets, while the latter one took radar detection mechanism into consideration by means of “ray tracing”. Although they each has its unique advantages, they were often unrealistic or time-consuming to meet actual simulation requirements. This paper presents a combined geometric and physical modeling method on millimeter-wave radar systems for Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) modulation format under a 3D simulation environment. With the geometric approach, a link between the virtual radar and 3D environment is established. With the physical approach, on the other hand, the ideal target detection and measurement are contaminated with noise and clutters aimed to produce the signals as close to the real ones as possible.

A high-precision steady state tire model is critical in the tire and vehicle matching research. For the moment, the popular Magic Formula model is an empirical model, which requires the pure and combined test data to identify the model parameters. Although MTS Flat-trac is an efficient tire test rig, the long test period and high test cost of a complete tire model tests for handling are yet to be solved. Therefore, it is necessary to explore a high accuracy method for predicting tire complex mechanical properties with as few test data as possible. In this study, a method for predicting tire combined slip characteristics from pure cornering and pure longitudinal test data has been investigated, and verified by comparing with the test data. Firstly, the prediction theory of UniTire model is introduced, and the formula for predicting combined slip characteristics based on constant friction coefficient is derived.

The slip ratio of vehicle driving wheels is easily beyond a reasonable range in the complex and changeable driving conditions. In order to achieve the adaptive acceleration slip regulation of four-wheel driving (4WD) vehicle, a fuzzy control strategy of Automatic Drive Train Management (ADM) system based on road situation identification was proposed in this paper. Firstly, the influence on the control strategy of ADM system was analyzed from two aspects, which included the different road adhesion coefficients and the vehicle’s ramp driving state. In the meantime several quantitative expressions of relevant control parameters were derived. Secondly, the fuzzy logic control algorithm was adopted to design a road situation identification subsystem and a ramp driving state identification subsystem respectively. The former was based on the μ-S curve model, and the latter was based on the vehicle driving equilibrium equation.

Tire-road friction condition is crucial to the safety of vehicle driving. The emergence of autonomous driving makes it more important to estimate the friction limit accurately and at the lowest possible excitation. In this paper, an early detection method of tire-road friction coefficient based on pneumatic trail under cornering conditions is proposed using an intelligent tire system. The previously developed intelligent tire system is based on a triaxial accelerometer mounted on the inner liner of the tire tread. The friction estimation scheme utilizes the highly sensitive nature of the pneumatic trail to the friction coefficient even in the linear region and its approximately linear relationship with the excitation level. An indicator referred as slip degree indicating the utilization of the road friction is proposed using the information of pneumatic trail, and it is used to decide whether the excitation is sufficient to adopt the friction coefficient estimate.

The powers generated by the skidding and slipping of a vehicle in unit time during driving are referred to as parasitic power. It has significant effects on wear on the tires, service life, and overall efficiency. However, existing methods to calculate parasitic power expressions that are not solvable in some cases, the reasonableness of the results of their calculations cannot be verified by experiments and the parameters of the loader cannot be calculated during the design of the vehicle. In this paper, we systematically analyze the mechanism of generation of parasitic power based on the differences in the radii of the tires of loaders. We innovatively propose a theoretical calculation method to calculate the wheel circumference parasitic work during the design of the loader. The results of experiments show that errors between the theoretical and experimental values of the wheel circumference parasitic work calculated under various working conditions were smaller than 5%.

The basic theory of statistical energy analysis (SEA) is introduced, a commercial heavy duty truck cab is divided into 35 subsystems applying SEA method, and a three dimensional SEA model of the commercial heavy duty truck cab is created. Three basic parameters including modal density, damping loss factor and coupling loss factor are calculated with analytical and experimental methods. The modal density of the regular wall plate of the cab is calculated with traditional formula. The damping loss factors of the regular and complicated plates are obtained using analytical method and steady energy stream method. Meanwhile, the coupling loss factors of structure-structure, structure-sound cavity, and cavity-cavity are also calculated. Four kinds of excitations are in the SEA model, including sound radiation excitation of engine, engine mount vibration excitation, road excitation and wind excitation.

In this paper, a shock absorber physical model is developed. Firstly, a rebound valve model which is based on its structure parameters is built through using the large deflection theory. The von Karman equations are introduced to discover the physical relationships between the load and the deflection of valve discs. An analytical solution of the von Karman equations is then deducted via perturbation method. Secondly, the flow equations and the pressure equations of the shock absorber operating are investigated. The relationship between fluid flow rate and pressure drop of rebound valve is analyzed based on the analytical solution of valve discs deflection. Thirdly, an inter-iterative process of flow rate and pressure drop is employed in order to adequately consider the influence of fluid flow on damping force. Finally, the physical model is validated by comparing the experimental data with the simulation output.

The Electromechanical Brake Booster system (EMBB) integrates active braking and energy recovery and becomes a novel brake-by-wire solution that substitutes the vacuum booster. While the intelligent unmanned vehicle is in unstable state, the EMBB can improve the vehicle yaw stability more quickly and safely. In this paper, a new type of integrated EMBB has been designed, which mainly includes two parts: servo motor unit and hydraulic control unit. Aiming at the dynamic instability problem of intelligent unmanned vehicle, a three-layer vehicle yaw stability control structure including decision layer, distribution layer and execution layer is proposed based on integrated EMBB. Firstly, the decision layer calculates the ideal yaw rate and the side slip angle of the vehicle with the classic 2DOF vehicle dynamics model. The boundary of the stable region is determined by the phase plane method and the additional yaw moment is determined by the feedback PI control algorithm.

In order to improve the tractive ability, steering capability and directional stability, etc. of automated mechanical transmission (AMT) vehicles running on the wet and slippery road, the anti-slip regulation (ASR) technologies for AMT vehicles are developed. The significance of ASR for AMT vehicles is introduced; a road friction recognition method based on the deceleration of driving wheels is investigated; a fuzzy anti-slip control system based on adjustment of engine torque is developed and the corresponding experimental verification is conducted. The experimental results denote that the proposed method is effective to eliminate the excessive slip when the AMT vehicle travels on the low friction road.

Although advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have been widely introduced in automotive industry to enhance driving safety and comfort, and to reduce drivers’ driving burden, they do not in general reflect different drivers’ driving styles or customized with individual personalities. This can be important to comfort and enjoyable driving experience, and to improved market acceptance. However, it is challenging to understand and further identify drivers’ driving styles due to large number and great variations of driving population. Previous research has mainly adopted physical approaches in modeling drivers’ driving behavior, which however are often very much limited, if not impossible, in capturing human drivers’ driving characteristics. This paper proposes a reinforcement learning based approach, in which the driving styles are formulated through drivers’ learning processes from interaction with surrounding environment.

Omni-directional electric vehicle built by our research group is an advanced electric vehicle whose four wheels can drive, steer and brake independently. The vehicle chassis system is composed of four in-wheel motors, four independent steer motors and electromagnetic brake system, and its control system is divided into logical control layer and underlying execution layer. The information exchange between these two layers is implemented by CAN bus. In this paper, the traction control logic for Omni-directional electric vehicle is developed. The study mainly involves two aspects: the vehicle states estimation and the traction control logic design. The vehicle states, including vehicle longitudinal velocity, lateral speed, side slip angle and yaw rate, etc, are estimated based on Extended Kalman Estimation and multiple degrees of freedom vehicle model.

A TCS strategy of electric vehicle with 4 in-wheel motors is proposed in this paper. The control method consists of three parts: target slip rate calculation, target torque calculation and coordination control. By using Lyapunov stability analysis algorithm, the target slip rate boundary which makes the system stable is obtained. The target torque of each wheel is calculated by PI controller. According to the engineering experience, the TCS coordinated control strategy under split friction coefficient (split-μ) road, and friction coefficient jump(μ jump) road is proposed. The test results show that this strategy can improve the acceleration comfort and yaw stability of vehicles on uniform low friction coefficient (low μ) , split-μ and μ jump road.