Post-Impact Stability Control for Four-Wheel- Independently-Actuated Electric Vehicles

Relevant studies show that vehicle instability such as drifting and spinning after the first impact may have further severe implications in road vehicle collision accidents. This paper presents a post-impact stability control scheme for four-wheel-independently-actuated electric vehicles (FWIA EVs). First, a sliding mode controller is designed to produce the reference yaw moment to attenuate undesired yaw motion after the first impact. Then, an optimization-based algorithm is developed for optimal wheel torque allocation and steering angle coordination to follow the derived reference yaw moment. Finally, the holistic algorithm is verified through co-simulation of Matlab/Simulink and CarSim. The verification results show that the developed scheme performs well and can maintain the stability of the test vehicle after a maximum lateral-rear impact impulse of 3500 Ns.