| This dissertation describes a methodology for the vehicle dynamics control of a wheel motored vehicle. All theory is developed assuming that the driver has control of the front wheel steering angle, and that wheel torque is solely generated by independent wheel motors at each corner of the vehicle. Theoretical work is presented for the general case with four independent wheel motors, but can be easily reduced to a situation with only two wheel motors. Indeed, all theory developed in this work is evaluated experimentally on a production automobile converted to be driven by two independent rear wheel motors.;As opposed to directly allocating wheel torques, the proposed philosophy operates in the slip-ratio domain. Doing so helps to prevent excessive tire saturation and allows the system to adapt to changing road surfaces. To that end, this dissertation first proposes a method of estimating slip-ratio utilizing only sensors currently available on modern automobiles. A slip-ratio controller is then developed approximating the disturbance observer structure. This allows the controller to be robust to changing road surface and as a byproduct provide an accurate estimate of longitudinal tire force. Combining the estimated longitudinal tire force with the estimated slip-ratio it is then possible to ascertain some degree of tire saturation. With this in mind, an optimal control allocation problem is proposed which attempts to achieve the desired vehicle dynamics while at the same time minimizing tire saturation.;It is shown experimentally that the proposed control methodology effectively achieves desired vehicle dynamics. In addition, the system adapts its behavior to changing road surfaces resulting in optimal performance regardless of operating conditions. |
