Trailer control through vehicle yaw moment control: Theoretical analysis and experimental assessment

Zanchetta, Mattia, Tavernini, Davide, Sorniotti, Aldo, Gruber, Patrick, Lenzo, Basilio, Ferrara, Antonella, Sannen, Koen, De Smet, Jasper and De Nijs, Wouter (2019) Trailer control through vehicle yaw moment control: Theoretical analysis and experimental assessment Mechatronics, 64, 102282.

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Abstract

This paper investigates a torque-vectoring formulation for the combined control of the yaw rate and hitch angle of an articulated vehicle through a direct yaw moment generated on the towing car. The formulation is based on a single-input single-output feedback control structure, in which the reference yaw rate for the car is modified when the incipient instability of the trailer is detected with a hitch angle sensor. The design of the hitch angle controller is described, including the gain scheduling as a function of vehicle speed. The controller performance is assessed by means of frequency domain and phase plane analyses, and compared with that of an industrial trailer sway mitigation algorithm. In addition, the novel control strategy is implemented in a high-fidelity articulated vehicle model for robustness assessment, and experimentally tested on an electric vehicle demonstrator with four on-board drivetrains, towing two different conventional single-axle trailers. The results show that: (i) the torque-vectoring controller based only on the yaw rate of the car is not sufficient to mitigate trailer instability in extreme conditions; and (ii) the proposed controller provides safe trailer behaviour during the comprehensive set of manoeuvres, thus justifying the additional hardware complexity associated with the hitch angle measurement.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions :	Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > Mechanical Engineering Sciences
Authors :	Name Email ORCID Zanchetta, Mattia m.zanchetta@surrey.ac.uk Tavernini, Davide d.tavernini@surrey.ac.uk Sorniotti, Aldo A.Sorniotti@surrey.ac.uk Gruber, Patrick P.Gruber@surrey.ac.uk Lenzo, Basilio Ferrara, Antonella Sannen, Koen De Smet, Jasper De Nijs, Wouter
Date :	December 2019
Funders :	European Union Seventh Framework Programme
DOI :	10.1016/j.mechatronics.2019.102282
Grant Title :	iCOMPOSE project
Copyright Disclaimer :	© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )
Uncontrolled Keywords :	Torque-vectoring; Articulated vehicle; Hitch angle control; Yaw moment; Experimental tests; Performance comparison
Depositing User :	Clive Harris
Date Deposited :	25 Nov 2019 14:23
Last Modified :	25 Nov 2019 14:25
URI:	http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/id/eprint/853199

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