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Aiming at achieving the economy and safety of downhill brake process (running downward along a long slope at a constant velocity) of commercial vehicles, an integrated control strategy of the main brake system and auxiliary brake systems is proposed. Based on Electronic Controlled Braking System (EBS), the strategy distributes braking force to each brake system and each axle according to the thermodynamic feature of them and the wear loss of each brake lining, in order to achieve economy at the premise of safety. A simulation is conducted based on MATLAB/Simulink and TruckSim. Simulation results show that the strategy proposed could control the temperature of each brake system at a rational value, and the balanced wear loss of brake linings is facilitated, thus, the safety and economy of downhill brake is ensured.

This paper presents a fault-tolerant control (FTC) method for four-wheel independently driven and steered (4WIS/4WID) electric vehicles based on a reconfigurable control allocation to increase the flexibility for vehicle control and improve the safety of vehicle after the steering actuator fails. The proposed fault tolerant control method consists of the following three parts: 1) a fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) module that monitors vehicle steering condition, detects and diagnoses actuator failures; 2) an upper controller that computes the generalized forces/moments to track the desired vehicle motion and trajectory; 3) a reconfigurable control allocator that optimally distributes the generalized forces/moments to four wheels. The FTC approach based on the reconfigurable control allocation reallocates the generalized forces/moments among healthy steering actuators and driving motors once the actuator failures is detected.

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.

Taking a good longitudinal braking performance on flat and level road of tractor and semi-trailer combination as a target, in order to achieve an ideal braking force distribution among axles, while the vehicle deceleration is just depend on the driver's intention, not affected by the variation of semi-trailer mass, the paper proposes a model based vehicle mass identification and braking force distribution strategy. The strategy identifies the driver's braking intention via braking pedal, estimates semi-trailer's mass during the building process of braking pressure in brake chamber, distributes braking force among axles by using the estimated mass. And a double closed-loop regulation of the vehicle deceleration and utilization adhesion coefficient of each axle is presented, in order to eliminate the bad effect of mass estimation error, and enhance the robustness of the whole algorithm. A simulation is conducted by utilizing MATLAB/Simulink and TruckSim.

The paper focus on enhancing the braking safety and improving the braking performance of the tractor/trailer vehicle. A slip-rate-based braking force distribution algorithm is proposed for the electronic braking system of tractor/trailer combination vehicle. The algorithm controls the slip-rates of the tractor's rear wheels and the semi-trailer's wheels changing with the slip-rate of tractor's front wheels, making tractor's front wheels lock up ahead of the tractor's rear wheels and the semi-trailer's wheels. The algorithm protects the combination vehicle from jackknifing and swing, guaranteeing that the combination vehicle has better driving stability and steering capability. The algorithm can be tested by co-simulation with MATLAB/Simulink and TruckSim software both on high adhesion and low adhesion roads.

In order to improve the braking energy recovery and ensure the braking comfort, a new type of regenerative braking coordinated control algorithm is designed in this paper. The hierarchical control theory is used to the regenerative braking control algorithm. First, the front axle braking force and rear axle braking force are distributed. Then the rear axle motor braking force and mechanical braking force are distributed. Finally, the dynamic coordinated control strategy is designed to control pneumatic braking system and motor braking system. Aimed at keeping the fluctuation of the total braking force of friction and the regenerative braking force small during braking modes switch, a coordinated controller was designed to control the pneumatic braking system to compensate the error of the motor braking force. Based on Matlab/Simulink platform, a parallel hybrid electric bus simulation model with electric braking system (EBS) was established.

Electronic braking system (EBS) of commercial vehicle is developed based on Anti-lock Braking System (ABS), for the purpose of enhancing the braking performance. Based on the previous study, this paper aims at the development and research on the control strategy of advanced electronic braking system for commercial vehicle, which mainly includes braking force distribution and multiple targets control strategy. In the study of braking force distribution control strategy, the mass of vehicle and the axle loads will be calculated dynamically and the braking force of each wheel will be distributed regarding to the axle loads. The braking intention recognition takes the brake pad wear into account when braking uncritically, so it can detect a difference in the pads between the front and the rear axles. The brake assist strategy supports the driver during emergency braking and the braking distance is shortened by the reduction of the braking system response time.

This paper establishes a brake pedal model for braking intention identification, using the structural features of electronic braking system and selecting the proper parameters. A three-dimensional model is built that the input parameters are pedal displacement and pedal displacement change rate, and the output parameter is braking intensity. The relationship between the driver braking operation and braking intention are designed. A hardware-in-the-loop test bench experiment has been taken under several skilled drivers to practice the established the brake pedal model with the operation data during the braking. Thus, it results a model indicating the braking intention by braking operation that means effectively improve the braking comfort and applies to the research of electronic braking system of commercial vehicle.

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.

The quality of the brake system is a significant safety factor in commercial vehicles on the roads. With the development of automobile technology, the single function ABS system didn't meet active safety requirements of the user. The Electronically Controlled Brake System (EBS) system will replace the ABS system to become the standard safety equipment of commercial vehicles in the near future. EBS can be said an enhanced ABS system, it contains load sensor, brake valve sensor and pressure sensor of chamber, etc, and it is more advantages than ABS. This paper describes a flexible integrated test bench for ABS/EBS Electronic Control Unit (ECU) based on Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation technique. It consists of most commercial vehicle pneumatic braking system components (from brake pedal valve, brake caliper to brake chambers), and uses the dSPACE real-time simulation system to communicate to the hardware I/O interface.

At present, the active safety and stability of heavy vehicles have becoming big concern among the road transportation industry. The purpose of this paper is to specify the research stability and safety of heavy vehicles those set up the accurate and reliable dynamic vehicle reference model and search the method to improve the stability and safety of tractor and semitrailer. A Multi-objective control algorithm was studied to differential braking based on linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control method. Simulation results show that the multi-objective control algorithm can effectively improve the vehicle driving stability and safety.

With vehicle platooning becoming an important research field in recent years, it is now imperative to introduce platoons as part of the dynamic environment, considering overtaking and merging possibilities. This article studies optimal speed trajectories and longitudinal control with optimized energy efficiency for an autonomous vehicle with several preceding platoons and full terrain information. It aims at improving the energy efficiency of vehicles with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). A forward discrete dynamic programming (DDP) algorithm with distance as the discretization basis is used to derive speed trajectories in the trade-off between air drag reduction and energy saved by utilizing the road slope information. The problem is decomposed into decisions whether to overtake or to merge into the nearest platoon with the assumption of sufficient distance among platoons.

Heavy commercial vehicles have large variations in load and high centroid positions, so it is particularly important to obtain timely and accurate load information during driving. If the load information can be accurately obtained and the braking force of each axle can be distributed on this basis, the braking performance and safety of the entire vehicle can be improved. Heavy commercial vehicle load information is different from passenger vehicles, so it is particularly important to study commercial vehicles engaged in freight and passenger transportation. Presently, numerous research endeavors focus on evaluating the quality of passenger vehicles. However, heavy commercial vehicles exhibit notable distinctions compared to their passenger counterparts. Due to substantial variations in vehicle mass pre and post-loading, coupled with notable suspension deformations, significant changes are observed.

Heavy vehicles have the characteristics of with high center of gravity position, large weight and volume, wheelbase is too narrow relative to the body height and so on, so that they always prone to rollover. In response to the above heavy security problems of heavy vehicle in running process, this paper mainly analyzes roll stability and yaw stability mechanism of heavy vehicles and studies the influence of vehicle parameters on stability by establishing the vehicle dynamics model. At the same time, this paper focuses on heavy vehicles stability control methods based on simulation and differential braking technology. At last, verify the effect of heavy vehicle stability control by computer simulation. The results shows that self-developed stability control algorithm can control vehicle stability effectively, so that the heavy vehicles instability can be avoided, the vehicle driving safety and braking stability are improved.

The simulation of electro-pneumatic components used in brake systems of commercial vehicles is of great importance in order to understand their characteristics for developing a control logic and improve the braking performance. As the goal of improving the performance of the commercial vehicle pneumatic EBS(Electronically controlled Braking System), static and dynamic characteristics of proportional relay valve for commercial vehicle pneumatic EBS have been simulated by using MATLAB/Simulink environment and validated by testing on hardware-in-the-loop test bench focused on its pressure hysteresis characteristic. The simulation and test results show that the mathematic model for proportional relay valve characteristics is reasonable and reliable, and this simulation tool can be used for research and developing of pneumatic EBS system for commercial vehicle effectively.

The commercial vehicle is widely used in the overland transport. A prediction is given on the 9th annual China automotive industry forum that the number of the global commercial vehicles will reach eight million by the year of 2016. However, since the distance between its gravity centre and the ground is larger than that of the passenger vehicle, considering its comparatively short wheelbase, the rollover accident, which is fatal to the drivers and always makes enormous loss of merchandises, easily occurs in the case of commercial vehicles. As the number of the commercial vehicle is increasing fast, the accidents will occur more frequently, the losses will be increasingly enormous. To solve the problem, many researches about rollover early warning systems have been done. In most cases, it is assumed that the references of the vehicle are given.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the path-following capability and high-speed lateral stability of the articulated heavy vehicles (AHVs). The six-axle heavy articulated vehicle was taken as the research object, in order to simplify the control design, the three-axle trailer of the articulated vehicles was simplified to a single-axle trailer. The Newton's second law was applied to the tractor unit and the single-axle trailer unit respectively, a three-degree-of-freedom vehicle yaw plane model was established, and its state space equation was derived. The trailer steering controller was designed by linear quadratic regulator (LQR) technique. At the same time, the optimal index function was determined by combining the vehicle state variables, and the optimal control input was obtained by using the algebraic Riccati equation.

With rapid development of the automobile industry and the growing maturity of the automotive electronic technologies, the distributed-traction electric vehicle with four-wheel-distributed steering/braking/traction systems is regarded as an important development direction. With its unique chassis structure, it is the ideal benchmark platform used to evaluate active safety systems. The distributed-traction electric vehicle with four-wheel-distributed steering system is essentially full drive-by-wire vehicle. With its flexible chassis layout and high control degrees-of-freedom, the full drive-by-wire electric vehicle acted as a kind of redundant system is an ideal platform for the research of integrated control. In this treatise, the longitudinal dynamics of the electric vehicle as well as its lateral and yaw motions are controlled simultaneously.

For city buses, especially hybrid electric buses, the requirements for the fuel economy and low noises are stricter, comparing with the momentum quality. Since hybrid electric buses sometimes run without the engine, the noises that the transmission makes become the major type. To get better fuel economy and lower noises, this paper focuses on optimizing the characteristics of the automatic mechanical transmission (AMT) in a hybrid electric city bus, and the studies are done as follows. Firstly, in order to reduce the fuel consumption, the transmission ratios are optimized by the co-simulation and optimization in CRUISE and MATLAB, with the limitation of the quality of driving momentum. Secondly, for the purpose of lightweight and lower transmission noise, multi-objective optimization based on reliability is applied in transmission geometric optimization design, the objective function are the smallest volume and the biggest transmission gear contact ratio of the transmission.

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.