Torque vectoring control system for distributed drive electric bus under complicated driving conditions
ISSN: 0144-5154
Article publication date: 13 October 2021
Issue publication date: 11 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose a torque vectoring control system for improving the handling stability of distributed drive electric buses under complicated driving conditions. Energy crisis and environment pollution are two key pressing issues faced by mankind. Pure electric buses are recognized as the effective method to solve the problems. Distributed drive electric buses (DDEBs) as an emerging mode of pure electric buses are attracting intense research interests around the world. Compared with the central driven electric buses, DDEB is able to control the driving and braking torque of each wheel individually and accurately to significantly enhance the handling stability. Therefore, the torque vectoring control (TVC) system is proposed to allocate the driving torque among four wheels reasonably to improve the handling stability of DDEBs.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed TVC system is designed based on hierarchical control. The upper layer is direct yaw moment controller based on feedforward and feedback control. The feedforward control algorithm is designed to calculate the desired steady-state yaw moment based on the steering wheel angle and the longitudinal velocity. The feedback control is anti-windup sliding mode control algorithm, which takes the errors between actual and reference yaw rate as the control variables. The lower layer is torque allocation controller, including economical torque allocation control algorithm and optimal torque allocation control algorithm.
Findings
The steady static circular test has been carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and control effort of the proposed TVC system. Compared with the field experiment results of tested bus with TVC system and without TVC system, the slip angle of tested bus with TVC system is much less than without TVC. And the actual yaw rate of tested bus with TVC system is able to track the reference yaw rate completely. The experiment results demonstrate that the TVC system has a remarkable performance in the real practice and improve the handling stability effectively.
Originality/value
In view of the large load transfer, the strong coupling characteristics of tire , the suspension and the steering system during coach corning, the vehicle reference steering characteristics is defined considering vehicle nonlinear characteristics and the feedforward term of torque vectoring control at different steering angles and speeds is designed. Meanwhile, in order to improve the robustness of controller, an anti-integral saturation sliding mode variable structure control algorithm is proposed as the feedback term of torque vectoring control.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely thanks Professor Zhenpo Wang of Beijing Institute of Technology for his critical discussion and reading during manuscript preparation.
Funding: This work was supported by National Key Research and Development Project of China (Grant No. 2017YFB0103600).
Availability of data and materials: The datasets supporting the conclusions of this article are included within the article.
Authors’ contributions: The author’ contributions are as follows: Liang Su was in charge of the whole trial; Chao Chen wrote the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Citation
Su, L., Wang, Z. and Chen, C. (2022), "Torque vectoring control system for distributed drive electric bus under complicated driving conditions", Assembly Automation, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-12-2020-0194
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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