Integrated control methodologies for road vehicles

This paper considers the scope, methodologies and architectures for the design and development of interacting control systems in road vehicles. The increasing use of electronic controls leads inevitably to an increase in overall system complexity. Given the time and economic constraints of the modem automotive industry, it is not feasible to synthesise and validate the full set of vehicle controls in the form of a unified and centralized controller. On the other hand a fully decentralized approach to control system development and operation will induce performance limitations from un-modelled or unexpected interactions; at worst, such interactions can cause instability and loss of function. There is now increasing pressure to achieve control coordination whilst maintaining a modular approach to the overall system design. With this in mind, the paper provides a framework to review cur-rent practice in integrated vehicle control, assesses recent developments in control integration methodologies that are most relevant to the vehicle application, and formulates an enhanced multi-layer architecture that includes explicit coordination functionality. Overall emphasis is placed on the role of control system architecture, the resulting flow of control information and the implications for control system design. An example from handling dynamics is presented, demonstrating the viability of new and flexible approaches. In conclusion a number of outstanding research problems are highlighted.