Distributed motion control of an electric vehicle

Summary form only given. INRIA has developed an electric vehicle for pedestrian areas which includes advanced motion control in order to enhance the safety of drivers and to introduce various forms of automated driving. The vehicle, called CyCab, has 4-wheel drive and 4-wheel steer implemented through 4 electric motors (one in each wheel) for propulsion, 4 electric motors (one for each wheel) for mechanical braking and one electric motor for steering the 4 wheels which are mechanically linked. The control of these 9 electric motors (plus all the sensory equipment and battery management) is performed through a set of 6 microcontrollers on a CAN network. The purpose of this paper is to present this architecture and its advantages in term of safety, price and performances, in particular to implement complex automated tasks. We will also present the software tools (based on synchronous techniques) needed to program the applications in a distributed environment. Two prototypes of these vehicles are now operational at INRIA and the company Robosoft is now selling this product on the market.