Title: Torque vectoring control for IWM vehicles

Authors: Michele Vignati; Edoardo Sabbioni; Davide Tarsitano

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan 20156, Italy ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan 20156, Italy ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan 20156, Italy

Abstract: In recent years, the environmental concern generates an high improvement in hybrid and electrical mobility technology. Several layouts are available for the electric powertrain; the most interesting is the one with four electric motors, one per each wheel. The main interesting feature of this layout is the possibility of independently applying driving or braking torques on each wheel, i.e., torque vectoring control strategies can be fully exploited. An innovative control strategy for in-wheel motor (IWM) vehicles is developed and compared with a state-of-the-art control logic by means of numerical simulations. The proposed controller can increase vehicle performance and safety in cornering both on high and low friction conditions. The controller is made of two contributions: one, for steady-state cornering, is based on optimal control theory; the second, mainly for stability control, is based on a yaw index that does not need any vehicle model or estimation.

Keywords: torque vectoring control; vehicle dynamics; IWM; in-wheel motors; hybrid electric vehicles; HEVs; hybrid vehicles; numerical simulation; vehicle performance; vehicle safety; vehicle cornering; steady-state cornering; optimal control; stability control; yaw index.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVP.2016.078561

International Journal of Vehicle Performance, 2016 Vol.2 No.3, pp.302 - 324

Received: 18 Feb 2016
Accepted: 08 May 2016
Published online: 23 Aug 2016 *

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