Title: Optimal control of an On-Demand All-Wheel Drive system (ODAWD) for vehicle traction enhancement

Authors: Sohel Anwar; Delon Reyhart; Delon R. Reyhart

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engnineering Purdue School of Engineering and Tech, IUPUI 723 W. Michigan Street, SL 260N Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA ' Caterpillar, Inc. 100 Ne Adams St Peoria, IL 61602, USA ' ServoTech, Inc., Peoria, IL, USA

Abstract: This paper presents an optimal algorithm to enhance the performance of an On-Demand All-Wheel Drive (ODAWD) vehicle by traction improvement through regulation of wheel slip. A |Minimum Fuel Problem| is developed with a cost function minimising the slip error and the control action defined as the ratio of the total torque transmitted to the non-driven wheels (rear wheels). A simplified vehicle model (bicycle model) is used to develop the proposed controller to optimally reduce the wheel slip error by engaging and dynamically controlling a hydraulic clutch. The controller performance was validated on a realtime Hardware-in-Loop (HIL) bench.

Keywords: optimal control; AWD; all-wheel drive; traction control; Pontryagin|s minimum principle; HIL; hardware-in-loop; real-time control; vehicle control; vehicle modelling; bicycle models; wheel slip error; hydraulic clutch.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2011.043271

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2011 Vol.56 No.1/2/3/4, pp.270 - 298

Received: 14 Jul 2010
Accepted: 25 Oct 2010

Published online: 10 Apr 2015 *

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