Lateral stability controller design for electrical vehicle based on active rear wheel steering

Lateral stability of an automotive vehicle in a cornering situation is critical to vehicle stability and handling performance and it is effective on reducing single-vehicle accidents. In order to obtain the lateral stability, a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) method considering rear steering angle as control variable is presented. It adopts tire sideslip angle to express vehicle lateral stability, and deals with the actuator and security constraints, and nonlinear properties of tire-road force effectively. In order to verify the effectiveness of the presented NMPC method, various simulations are carried out in vehicle conventional and critical running conditions. The simulation results specify that the tire sideslip angle could effectively express the lateral vehicle stability and the proposed NMPC method could obtains better lateral stability.