Coordinated control based path following of distributed drive autonomous electric vehicles with yaw-moment control

This research seeks to study the path following issue for distributed drive autonomous electric vehicles (DDAEV). In order to improve the tracking accuracy and vehicle stability, coordinated control of tracking deviation compensation and vehicle stability by yaw-moment is proposed. Based on the three degree-of freedom vehicle model, model predictive control is used to calculate the steering angle of front wheels to control the vehicle along the reference path by autonomous steering. In this process, two sliding surfaces whose control targets are tracking deviation and yaw rate deviation are first set, then two sliding surfaces are combined into one coordinated sliding surface with weight coefficients considering the vehicle stability, and finally the yaw-moment is figured out and distributed with the constant torque requirement of the vehicle. Carsim co-simulation with Simulink and Hardware-in-the-Loop experiment are conducted, which shows that compared to autonomous steering control, coordinated control achieves better path following accuracy and vehicle stability for DDAEV under different driving conditions.

Automated summary

This research focuses on studying the path following issue for distributed drive autonomous electric vehicles (DDAEV) by proposing coordinated control of tracking deviation compensation and vehicle stability. The model predictive control method is used along with a three degree-of-freedom vehicle model to improve tracking accuracy and vehicle stability. Experimentation shows that coordinated control achieves better path following accuracy and vehicle stability for DDAEV under different driving conditions compared to autonomous steering control.