Adaptive Sliding Mode Control of Rack Position Tracking System for Steer-by-Wire Vehicles

This paper describes adaptive sliding mode control of a steer-by-wire (SBW) system to guarantee rack position tracking performance in various driving situations. The proposed control algorithm was developed using only motor position sensors (MPS) without information on tire/road friction. A stiffness parameter adaptation law was designed to compensate for disturbances in the SBW rack system. It is demonstrated that the proposed adaptation algorithm provides good tracking performance without using an additional gain tuning approach under various road conditions. Moreover, in the proposed algorithm, a dynamic stiffness model has been developed to improve rack position tracking performance under a zero vehicle speed scenario. In a dynamic stiffness model, the stiffness center is not fixed but changes depending on the actual rack position. In the event than an SBW vehicle is parking, it is important to ensure rack position tracking performance at low and zero vehicle speeds. Computer simulations and vehicle tests were performed under various driving situations to test the performance of the proposed control algorithm. The results demonstrate that the proposed control algorithm ensures tracking performance on dry asphalt and wet road conditions, as well as at zero vehicle speed.