Coordinated Steering and Torque Vectoring Lateral Stability Sliding Mode Control Applied to an Electric In-Wheel Motors Vehicle

The growing availability of mechatronics and by-wires system on modern automotive vehicle recently engaged the interest of designers for active safety lateral stability tasks. Moreover, the rapid transition towards Electric Vehicle is further increasing the opportunities to develop innovative control solutions. This paper proposed a three layers side-slip and yaw rate controller through coordination of Steering and Torque Vectoring techniques, based on Sliding Mode methodologies. The solution has been tested in a simulation environment on different standardized cornering tests, supposing a Four-Wheel Drive Electric Vehicle use case, with In-Wheel Motors traction layout. The portability of the algorithm is ensured by proper parametrization, allowing the implementation of the strategy on different vehicle architecture. The controller proves to be effective at increasing lateral stability performances in a concrete way, by ensuring lower tracking error compared to the ideal kinematic drive path. Finally, weakness of the coordinated control strategy are highlighted and solutions to overcomes these problems are presented.