Torque Vectoring control for IWM vehicles

In recent years, the environmental concern generates an high improvement in hybrid and electrical mobility technology. Several layouts are available for the electric powertrain; the most interesting is the one with four electric motors, one per each wheel. The main interesting feature of this layout is the possibility of independently applying driving or braking torques on each wheel, i.e., torque vectoring control strategies can be fully exploited. An innovative control strategy for in-wheel motor (IWM) vehicles is developed and compared with a state-of-the-art control logic by means of numerical simulations. The proposed controller can increase vehicle performance and safety in cornering both on high and low friction conditions. The controller is made of two contributions: one, for steady-state cornering, is based on optimal control theory; the second, mainly for stability control, is based on a yaw index that does not need any vehicle model or estimation.