TORQUE ALLOCATION IN EVS WITH 4 IN-WHEEL MOTORS: A HIGH-PERFORMANCE APPROACH

This work addresses the problematic associated with the torque distribution in electric vehicles endowed with four (4) in-wheel motors (4IWMs). In particular, our efforts will be focused in the development of allocation strategies that allow the driver to access the maximum performance of the 4IWMs. Toward that goal, we will start by considering a minimum-time manoeuvring problem, which, besides generating the optimal driver inputs, also enables us to establish a benchmark solution for the torque allocation problem. Spurred by the high computational burden of the benchmark solution, a real-time allocation strategy will then be developed. Implementation simplicity and ease of tuning represent the main advantages of this latter strategy. Several simulation results demonstrate that the proposed real-time allocation approach, despite only theoretically ensuring sub-optimal results, is able to reach performance levels very close to ones established by the benchmark solution.