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2020-01-5174 Published 22 Jan 2021

The Structural Design and Experimental Study of

Integrated Stability Control for Distributed Driven
Electric Vehicle
Chen Lin, Xuexun Guo, Xiaofei Pei, and Yongqiang Yang Wuhan University of Technology, China

Citation: Lin, C., Guo, X., Pei, X., and Yang, Y., “The Structural Design and Experimental Study of Integrated Stability Control for
Distributed Driven Electric Vehicle,” SAE Technical Paper 2021-01-5174, 2021, doi:10.4271/2020-01-5174.

Abstract
identification of vehicle stability and steering characteristics,

D
ue to the individual controllability of each motor, the and the coordinated algorithm of additional yaw moment and
distributed driven electric vehicle has provided a active front angle, etc. The medium controller is the decision
broad research domain for vehicle integrated control. and allocation layer, which primarily finishes the coordination
This paper focuses on vehicle stability control by the integra- of brake and motor control. The lower controller is the execu-
tion of three systems, the hydraulic brake unit, active steering tion layer, which is mainly to control three actual variables
unit, and motor torque control unit. Firstly, the hierarchical (the pressure of brake wheel, the torque of each motor, the
control strategy has been designed generally, which is divided angle of front-wheel) to follow the expectations. Finally, to
into three levels, the upper controller, medium controller, and validate the effectiveness of strategy proposed, the Hardware
lower controller. Secondly, based on the hierarchical structure, In-the-Loop (HIL) tests are conducted on two typical condi-
each controller has been introduced in detail. The upper tions, compared with the strategy without active front angle
controller is the application layer, which has implemented the control and only hydraulic brake control, the results have
functions such as the estimations of vehicle states and road shown that the strategy proposed has a better property on
conditions, calculation of nominal control variables, vehicle stability.

Introduction
yaw moment around the body, which is aimed to drag the

I
n the early 1990s, the Bosch has developed a vehicle stability vehicle to stable states.
system which was called and widely recognized as Powered by the rapid development of electric vehicles,
Electronic Stability Program (ESP) nowadays. The National the distributed driven electric vehicle has been caught much
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), based on attention by scholars. The independent control for each motor
huge amounts of crash data, has studied this technology and has broadened a brand-new research field. Besides, as the
drown an important conclusion that the sedan and Sport degree of electrification in vehicles is increasingly high,
Utility Vehicle (SUV) equipped with ESP has less probability Drive-by-wire chassis, especially the steer-by-wire, has been
of traffic accident for about 34 percent and 59 percent [1]. The gradually developed nowadays. As a result, the three opera-
results have greatly promoted the research of vehicle stability tional units (steering, braking, and driving system) could
control for other automobile corporations. To improve the not only be controlled by the driver but also by the controller,
penetration rate of vehicles equipped with a stability system, which provides the possibility for the integrated dynamic
America was also the first to state that, after September 2011, control. In the last three years, many scholars have studied
all vehicles with a mass of less than 4536kg in the USA must the integration of vehicle dynamics. The paper [2] has given
have an Electronic Stability Control (ESC) system. In the a brief overview of dynamic control for electric vehicles and
meantime, a test standard FMVSS126 has been issued by pointed that the in-hub-wheel motor has an advantage on
NHTSA as well. At present, there are many commercial response times, which offers a theoretical possibility to
products for vehicle stability control in the market. Although enhance the vehicle dynamics. Besides, the paper [3] has
they have different names in different manufacturers, the proposed a novel integrated system by coordinating Active
technical principles are almost the same. When the vehicle is Front Steering, Direct Yaw Moment Control, and Electric
unstable, the controller will generate a hydraulic brake Differential System. A sliding mode backstepping algorithm
pressure at a single wheel, and then there will be an additional was applied for the Direct Torque Control, which could
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2 THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL

reduce the torque fluctuation. The simulation results have the simulation results have fully distinguished the advantages
validated the effectiveness of the system in vehicle stability. and disadvantages of three kinds of actuators for vehicle
Also, the paper [4] has proposed a control method for stability control. Finally, the conclusions are drawn in
in-wheel-motor electric vehicles, which consists of three section 5.
components, a feedback control based on yaw rate, a feed-
forward control based on lateral acceleration, and a decelera-
tion control based on steering characteristics. The experi-
mental results show that the vehicle stability in critical The General Design of
steering can be improved.
To realize the integrated stability control for distributed
Hierarchical Structure for
electric vehicles, there are many technologies to be solved
such as the estimation of vehicle states, identification of
Vehicle Integrated
vehicle characteristics, integrated control algorithm, and Stability Control
coordinated control strategy. Firstly, restricted by vehicle
sensors, the controller needs to estimate the vehicle states The hierarchical control structure, which has been applied in
such as the yaw rate and sideslip angle on vehicle stability the paper, has been widely adopted by scholars due to its
control. At present, the state observer based on the Kalman advantages such as clear organization, strong adaptability,
filter is the main method to estimate the vehicle states. In and easy to understand. The hierarchical structure for vehicle
paper [5] to [8], to get more precise vehicle states, scholars integrated stability is shown in Figure 1 below.
have proposed many useful approaches, such as the dual The figure above shows that the control structure is
extended Kalman filter, adaptive unscented Kalman filter, divided into three layers, which are mainly distinguished
and variable structure extended Kalman filter. Secondly, as based on the algorithm. The upper layer is the application
the controller must know when the control should be trig- layer. The medium layer is the allocation and decision layer.
gered or quit, the vehicle stability state needs to be identified. The lower layer is the execution layer. The upper controller,
In the [9], the Inagaki S et al was the first to propose a phase- which is bounded by the coordinated algorithm with addi-
plane of sideslip angle and its derivative to judge vehicle tional yaw moment and additional steering angle, mainly
stability. Based on it, Jin H has put forward a limited speed completes the estimation of vehicle state, the calculation of
to improve the phase-plane in [10] while Yu Z has raised a nominal control variables, the identification of vehicle
yaw rate joint criterion to modify the insufficiency of a single stability, and the identification of steering characteristics.
criterion in [11]. Besides, the control algorithm was also a The medium controller, bounded by slip rate control, mainly
crucial problem for vehicle stability control, which determines performs the functions of the decision of brake wheel,
whether the control input is appropriate or not. Except for optimal distribution of longitudinal force, calculation of
conventional PID control, scholars prefer to apply modern expected slip rate, and electro-hydraulic strategy. The lower
control theories to vehicle stability including The Linear controller is aimed to control the actual front wheel angle,
Quadratic Regulator in [12], Slide Mode Control in [13], wheel pressure, and motor torque to follow the expected value
Robust control in [14], and Model predictive control in [15]. by the medium controller. As lower control is accomplished
As for the control strategy, for example, in the [16], Jie C et al in the test platform, this paper focuses on the upper and
have proposed a pre-control strategy that the velocity is medium controller.
adjusted before the trigger of brake intervention. Also, the It’s easy to know the controller in the first step is to
paper [17] has studied the Electric-Hydraulic allocation estimate the vehicle states including the sideslip angle, yaw
strategy. Compared with only motor control, the vehicle tests rate, and road conditions. Many other modules in the upper
have proved that the compound strategy has a better perfor- and medium controller need this information. The yaw rate
mance on vehicle stability. and sideslip angle are two significant control variables in
In order to fully understand each technology of vehicle the upper controller, after a coordinated algorithm, the
stability and provide a clear direction area for researchers, module outputs two control inputs, namely, the additional
we are motivated to do the research. The main contributions yaw moment and front-wheel angle. The additional front-
of this article are as follows. Firstly, a hierarchical structure, wheel angle will be transformed into the desired left and
which is divided into three layers for vehicle stability, has been right angle of the front wheel, and then the lower controller
designed in detail in section 1 where the data flow and logical will implement the order from the medium controller. In
relationships between modules have been shown to help the the meantime, the additional yaw moment is separated into
reader with a comprehensive understanding of the modular- two ways after passing an electro-hydraulic control module.
ized controller. Secondly, to explore the integrated control of One represents the conventional hydraulic brake control
the motor, hydraulic brake, and active steering, a proper strategy, and another is the motor torque control strategy.
strategy has been established in section 2 and section 3. A After getting the expected longitudinal tire force of two
Linear Quadratic Regulator has been adopted to design the parts, the desired target slip ratios can be  calculated
coordinated algorithm where a method of offline solution and backward via a magic formula tire model. Then, the desired
online look-up was applied to improve the real-time perfor- pressure and motor torque are gotten through a Proportional
mance and reduce the computation loads. Thirdly, on two Integral algorithm and sent to the lower controller. All the
typical conditions of Sine with Dwell Waveform and Double symbols in Figure 1 are defined in the Definitions part at
Lane Change, the HIL test has been conducted in section 4, the end of the paper.
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THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL 3

 FIGURE 1   The hierarchical structure for vehicle integrated stability control.

© SAE International.

The Design of Upper Variable Structure Extended Kalman Filter has been
applied in the paper, which can be referred to detailedly in
Controller the paper [8].

Estimation of Vehicle States

and Road Conditions Design of Nominal Control
Due to the limitation of technology and cost, some vehicle
Variables
states cannot be directly obtained by sensors. On vehicle Shibahata Y et al, who were the first to study the identification
stability control, the sideslip angle, as one of the most of vehicle stability in the [18], have found that the larger the
important control variables, is the key to the stability sideslip angle at the center of the vehicle, the more likely it is
control, which will directly affect the performance of the to be  unstable. Therefore, they have proposed to use the
controller. To get the sideslip angle, the state observer based sideslip angle to represent vehicle stability. Besides, in paper
on Kalman Filter is a popular way in recent years. Besides, [9], Inagaki S et al have also described vehicle stability with
the road adhesion coefficient, which is difficult to get a the sideslip angle and its derivative. Except for the sideslip
precise estimation nowadays, is also an important param- angle, the yaw rate often deviates from normal range when
eter in vehicle stability control. Because of the rough esti- the vehicle side away. So, in many academic studies such the
mation of the adhesion coefficient, the nonlinear vehicle [11] [12, 13], the yaw rate and sideslip angle are regarded as
model, such as the 7 Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) model, two critical control variables on vehicle stability. To get the
in consequence, will have some uncertainty in state nominal (or expected) yaw rate and sideslip angle, the classic
observer. To overcome this disadvantage, a method of linear 2 DOF vehicle model is widely used for its accurate
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4 THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL

 FIGURE 2   The logic diagram of back-steering detection. the time of control intervention. Since the sideslip angle is
estimated, the first derivative may have a large error. To
improve practicability in engineering, a method of the
threshold, which is practical and easy to understand, is
adopted in this paper. The logic diagram of the threshold
method can be gotten in paper [19]. As the threshold is not
constant and changing dynamically, it needs to be modified
properly according to the vehicle states. The factors of vehicle
speed, road adhesion coefficient, steering states, and back-
steering are selected in this paper to modify the thresholds.
The correction functions are designed in Figure 3.
The identification of steering characteristics is another
problem to be solved, which is not only needed by the correc-
tion of thresholds but also very important for the brake
decision module in the medium controller. Since the steady-
state response of most vehicles is slight understeer which

© SAE International.
approximately equal to neutral steer, so a comparative
approach is available to distinguish three steering states. The
expressions can be obtained in paper [19].

description of lateral dynamics. The expressions of the Coordinated Algorithm of

nominal yaw rate and sideslip angle are shown as follows. Additional Yaw Moment and
   Front Wheel Angle
ωrq = 1 min  uδ µ 
, g  sgn (δ ) To get a reasonable control input, the Linear Quadratic


1 + τ ωr s (
 L 1 + Ku )
2
u 
 Regulator is adopted to design the coordinated algorithm of

   additional yaw moment and front-wheel angle in this paper.
1  l + ml f u 2 / k 2L l ml  Firstly, ∆M and ∆δ are added into the linear 2 DOF vehicle
 βq = min  r δ , µ g  r2 + f   sgn (δ )


1 +τ βs (
 L 1 + Ku
2
) u k 2L 

model as follows.
(1)
As the linear vehicle model doesn't take into account the X = AX + B∆M + E (δ + ∆δ ) (2)
nonlinear characteristic of the tire, the nominal yaw rate and
sideslip angle have to be restricted by the road adhesion condi-
tion. So, the minimum function in the equation (1) includes Where the matrices of X, X , A, B, and E are defined
an expression related to the road adhesion coefficient. as follows.

 k1 + k2 l f k1 − lr k2 
Detection of Back-Steering  mu mu2
− 1
A= 
The back-steering detection is an auxiliary module from the  l f k1 − lr k2 l 2f k1 + lr2k2 
vehicle tests by the driver. When the driver turns back the steering  
 Jz uJ z  (3)
wheel, there will be a phase difference between the nominal and
actual control variables, which may cause unnecessary interven-  −k1 
 0  mu 
tion and discomfort to the driver. The reason is that the nominal  β  β
 
X =   X =   B =  1  E =  
control variables are approximately obtained from the steady- ωr     −l f k1 
ω r   J z 
state responses of the 2 DOF model. The back-steering flag mainly  J z 
affects the threshold value of the intervention. If the back-steering
is detected, the threshold should be increased. The logic diagram
of back-steering detection is shown in Figure 2. The linear 2 DOF model without control inputs are
The back_steer_f lag=1 means the back-steering is as follows.
detected, the n is the counter variable.
X q = AX q + Eδ (4)

Identification of Vehicle
Where Xq and X q are as follows.
Stability and Steering
Characteristics  βq   βq 
The purpose of identification for vehicle stability is to let the X q =   X q =   (5)
controller know whether the vehicle is unstable and determine ω rq  ωrq 
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THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL 5

 FIGURE 3   The correction of thresholds.

© SAE International.

After subtracting the equation (4) by equation (2), a

standard form of the Linear Quadratic Regulator can The Design of Medium
be obtained as follows. Controller
e = Ae + B′d (6)
Where e, e, B′, d are as follows. Electro-Hydraulic Control
e = X − X q e = X − X q B′ = [ B E ] d = [ ∆M ∆δ ] (7)
T Strategy
How to develop a reasonable electro-hydraulic strategy is of
According to the Linear Quadratic Regulator theory, the great significance to not only improve vehicle stability but also
cost function is defined as follows. enhance the ride comfort of drivers. The paper [19] has compared
+∞ the differences between motor torque strategy and hydraulic
∫ (e Qe + d Rd )dt (8)
1 brake strategy. the HIL test results show that the motor torque
J= T T
2
0
control has a better performance on vehicle stability and riding
comfort at low and medium speed, but restricted by maximum
To show the dynamic importance attached to control
torque on high speed, the brake control is more reliable and
variables and control inputs, a sigmoid function is selected to
effective than motor control. To improve the riding comfort
design the weighted matrices Q and R properly as follows
under the premise of ensuring vehicle stability, a new strategy,
as shown in Figure 5, is made in this paper.
  1    1 
k β 1 − −ζ ( µ − ξ ) 
0  k 0  The strategy has defined two control modes in the figures.
Q =   1 + e   R =  ∆M  At first, to suppose the vehicle is turning left and oversteering,
   1+ e ( ) 
−ζ µ − ξ
k ωr the left figure shows the motor control mode, when the target
 0 −ζ µ − ξ 
)  0 
 1+ e ( )   k ∆δ  torques output by the tire slip ratio control is less than the
(9) peak torques, it means that the actual torques of each motor
are sufficient to generate the expected longitudinal forces of
After solving the Riccati equation, the ∆M and ∆δ can each wheel, and then to meet the additional yaw moment by
be obtained as a feedback form as follows. the upper controller. At this time, the hydraulic brake is not
∆M = k 11 ( βq − β ) + k 12 (ωrq − ωr ) required to response. This condition mainly occurs at a low
 (10) or medium speed of the vehicle because the motor could reach
∆δ = k 21 ( βq − β ) + k 22 (ωrq − ωr ) bigger peak torque at the working area of constant torque. The
To improve the real-time performance and reduce the motor model is used in this paper as follows.
computation loads of the algorithm, a method of offline solu-
Tmax n ≤ ne
tions and online lookup tables is used in the paper. The 
database of coefficients kij (i, j=1, 2) can be gotten through Ttq =  9550Pe (11)
 n n > ne
offline computations in Figure 4.
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6 THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL

 FIGURE 4   The database of coefficients.

© SAE International.
 FIGURE 5   Two control modes of electro-hydraulic strategy. additional longitudinal force to compensate for the lacking
additional yaw moment.

TABLE 1  The decision of brake wheel. (Table 1 has taken from

Ref. [19])
Steer characteristic Turning direction Brake wheel

Reprinted with permission from

Ref. [19]. © SAE International.
Oversteer Right Left front wheel
Understeer Right Right rear wheel
Neutral steer Right No brake
Oversteer Left Right front wheel
Understeer Left Left rear wheel
Neutral steer Left No brake
© SAE International.

The Decision of Brake Wheel

The decision logic of the brake wheel, which mainly depends
on steering states and turning direction, has been widely
admitted and cited by scholars in brake strategy for vehicle
stability. The logic can be shown as follows.

With the increase of the velocity, when the target torque

of any motor is greater than the peak torque, the actual longi- Calculation of Expected
tudinal forces can't reach the target values, which means the
motor control is hard to produce expected longitudinal forces
Braking Force
and meet the requirement of additional yaw moment. At this As only one wheel will be braked in brake strategy, it’s easy
moment, the intervention of a hydraulic brake is involved to the function from the additional yaw moment into the
soon. According to the decision module of the brake wheel, expected tire longitudinal force. The expressions are
the right front wheel should be  braked to generate an as follows.
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THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL 7

 2∆M
 B cos δ + 2l sin δ left front wheel
Magic Formula Tire Model
 1 f 1
The magic formula tire model is widely used in vehicle
 2∆M dynamics, which can be obtained in Ref. [20].
 B cos δ 2 + 2l f sin δ 2 rigght front wheel
Fqx =  (12)
 2∆M left rear wheel
 B
 PI Control for Tire Slip Ratios
 2∆M right rear wheel
 B A Proportion Integration algorithm is adopted for the tire slip
ratios control as the Differentiation calculation may cause
instability of the control system if it’s used improperly. The
Optimal Distribution of expression is as follows.
Longitudinal Forces
As for the motor control, in order to distribute the additional t

yaw moment to each wheel properly, the longitudinal forces

of each tire have been allocated with a quadratic optimization
Ptar (Ttari ) = K P (κ qi ( t ) − κ i ( t ) ) + K I
∫ (κ
0
qi (t ) − κi (t ) ) dt (17)
method. In this paper, the sum efficiencies of the adhesion
coefficient for each tire are selected as the objective function.
To solve the problem conveniently, two equality constraints
are considered. The analytic expressions of longitudinal forces The HIL Simulation Results
are shown as follows, which can be deduced from the Ref. [19].
and Analyses
 Fz21 cos δ1  ∆M FW + Ff 
Fqx 1 = 2  − 
 Fz 3 + Fz21 cos2 δ1  B 2 
The HIL Test Platform
 −Fz22 cos δ 2  ∆M FW + Ff 
Fqx 2 = 2  +  The HIL tests need to build a real-time environment with
 Fz 4 + Fz22 cos2 δ 2  B 2  physical hardware. In this paper, the NI-PXI of National
 (13)
F = Fz23  ∆M FW + Ff  Instrument corporation has been used to establish a real-time
−
 qx 3 Fz23 + Fz21 cos2 δ1  B 2 
 platform which is shown in Figure 6. The strategy was built
 by Matlab/Simulink and then compiled for the Labview
 −Fz24  ∆M FW + Ff  software, the vehicle model of Carsim software was adopted
 Fqx 4 =  + 
 Fz
2
4 + F z
2
2 cos 2
δ 2  B 2  for the tests. All the lower controller have been completed for
the upper application. Two typical conditions, which are Sine
with Dwell Waveform and Double Lane Change, were selected
Calculation of Front Wheel
Angles
As the driver has also driven the vehicle, the target angles of
 FIGURE 6   The HIL test platform of the strategy.
the left and right front wheel should include two parts. One
part is the steering wheel angle from the driver, and another
is the additional front-wheel angle from the upper controller.
The target angles are designed as the sum of two parts
as follows.
δ tari = δ i′ + ∆δ i ( i = 1,2 ) (14)
Where δi′ and Δδi are calibrated as follows.
1.093 × 10 sw ( ° ) sw ≥ 0
−3
δ1′ ( rad ) = 
8.971 × 10 sw ( ° ) sw < 0
−4

(15)
8.971 × 10−4 sw ( ° ) sw ≥ 0
δ 2′ ( rad ) = 
1.093 × 10 sw ( ° ) sw < 0
−3

1.11∆δ ( rad ) ∆δ ≥ 0
∆δ1 ( rad ) = 
© SAE International.

0.91∆δ ( rad ) ∆δ < 0

(16)
0.91∆δ ( rad ) ∆δ ≥ 0
∆δ 2 ( rad ) = 
1.11∆δ ( rad ) ∆δ < 0
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8 THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL

TABLE 2  The parameters in section 2 and section 3.  FIGURE 8   The vehicle speed.

Parameters Value Parameters Value

ne 457 r/min k2 -75375 k/rad
Pe 8 kW g 9.8 m/s2
Tmax 167 N · m τωr 0.1s
lf 1.016 m τβ 0.2s
lr 1.562 m kβ 5
L 2.578 m kωr 8

© SAE International.
B 1.539 m k∆M 6×107
m 1416 kg k∆δ 0.01
K 3.013×10 s /m
-3 2 2
ζ 6
k1 -56552k/rad ξ 0.5

© SAE International.
to validate the performance of the strategy proposed in this
paper because they are complementary to evaluate the vehicle
stability. Firstly, The condition of Sine with Dwell Waveform
is an open-loop approach which is used to objectively evaluate
the vehicle stability in FMVSS126, but it does not consider the  FIGURE 9   The yaw rate.
intention of the driver. However, the Double Lane Change
could exactly evaluate the vehicle stability subjectively with a
closed-loop driver model. The simulation results are shown
in the next. The parameters in section 2 and section 3 are
summarized in Table 2.

Sine with Dwell Waveform

Condition
The Sine with Dwell Waveform is an important condition to
objectively assess the vehicle stability in FMVSS126. The test
requirements can be gotten in the [21]. The simulation results
are shown as follows.

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 FIGURE 7   The steering wheel angle.
 FIGURE 10   The sideslip angle.
© SAE International.

© SAE International.
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THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL 9

 FIGURE 11   The lateral offset.  FIGURE 14   The motor torque of each wheel.
© SAE International.

© SAE International.
 FIGURE 12   The additional yaw moment and front
wheel angle.
The basic amplitude of Sine with Dwell Waveform is
measured to be 37.0° through an open-loop simulation. The
figures above show the results that when the amplitude of the
signal reaches its maximum at 270°. The results of other ampli-
tudes are summarized in Table 3.
The results have compared the strategy proposed in this
paper with the way without active front wheel control.
Although the yaw rate and lateral offsets both meet the
requirements of the regulation, the strategy with front-wheel
control is more effective especially in suppressing the pear
yaw rate and sideslip angle in Figure 9 and Figure 10. More
importantly, the additional yaw moment, in strategy with
active steering, is lower than that without steering control in
© SAE International.

Figure 12, and in turn, the brake pressure is lower as well in

Figure 13, which means it is more beneficial for vehicle riding
comfort. Also, it could be understood that the active steering
control “shares” a certain amount of additional yaw moments,
making the electro-hydraulic control less “violent”. In general,
under the condition of Sine with Dwell Waveform, the inte-
 FIGURE 13   The brake pressure of each wheel. grated control strategy in this paper can improve vehicle
stability to some extent.

Double Lane Change

Condition
As the condition of Sine with Dwell Waveform is tested on
the high-adhesion road, the instability of the vehicle is mainly
reflected as oversteer. The understeer is difficult to happen.
To further verify the effectiveness of the strategy, a closed-loop
driver model in Carsim is adopted to conduct the simulation
tests of Double Line Change condition. The results are as
follows when the road adhesion coefficient and target velocity
are set to 0.2 and 60km/h.
The figures show that when there is no control, the vehicle
© SAE International.

losses stability completely at the fourth bend due to the diver-

gent sideslip angle on low adhesion road. When the control
is on, it appears that there is no much difference between the
two control ways. The target speed of them remains relatively
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10 THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL

TABLE 3  The simulation results at all different amplitudes.

ωr − 1 s ω r − 1.75 s
Ampitude |ωrpeak| |ωr-1s| |ωr-1.75s| ω rpeak ω rpeak Y1.07s Control method
1.5A 0.220 0.004 0.001 1.82 0.46 1.117 ΔM+Δδ
0.235 0.008 0.001 3.40 0.43 1.154 ΔM
2.0A 0.270 0.009 0.001 3.33 0.37 1.431 ΔM+Δδ
0.295 0.036 0.001 12.2 0.34 1.485 ΔM
2.5A 0.357 0.010 0.000 2.80 0.00 1.681 ΔM+Δδ
0.394 0.032 0.002 8.12 0.51 1.721 ΔM
3.0A 0.443 0.008 0.000 1.81 0.00 1.921 ΔM+Δδ
0.504 0.032 0.001 6.35 0.20 1.964 ΔM
3.5A 0.481 0.008 0.001 1.66 0.21 2.112 ΔM+Δδ
0.571 0.041 0.001 7.18 0.18 2.164 ΔM
4.0A 0.527 0.008 0.001 1.52 0.19 2.259 ΔM+Δδ
0.635 0.031 0.001 4.88 0.16 2.285 ΔM
4.5A 0.563 0.008 0.001 1.42 0.18 2.371 ΔM+Δδ
0.680 0.041 0.001 6.03 0.15 2.355 ΔM
5.0A 0.628 0.006 0.001 0.96 0.16 2.449 ΔM+Δδ
0.730 0.032 0.001 4.38 0.14 2.496 ΔM
5.5A 0.675 0.004 0.001 0.59 0.15 2.512 ΔM+Δδ
0.761 0.042 0.002 5.52 0.26 2.565 ΔM
6.0A 0.723 0.004 0.001 0.55 0.14 2.557 ΔM+Δδ
0.804 0.025 0.002 3.11 0.25 2.625 ΔM
6.5A 0.756 0.004 0.001 0.53 0.13 2.594 ΔM+Δδ
0.851 0.032 0.002 3.76 0.24 2.666 ΔM
7.0A 0.770 0.006 0.001 0.78 0.13 2.620 ΔM+Δδ

© SAE International.
0.918 0.025 0.002 2.72 0.22 2.692 ΔM
270° 0.801 0.004 0.000 0.50 0.00 2.634 ΔM+Δδ
0.924 0.028 0.002 3.03 0.22 2.726 ΔM
Units rad/s rad/s rad/s % % m -

 FIGURE 15   The steering wheel angle.  FIGURE 16   The vehicle speed.
© SAE International.

© SAE International.
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THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL 11

 FIGURE 17   The yaw rate.  FIGURE 19   The path of the vehicle.

© SAE International.
© SAE International.

 FIGURE 20   The additional yaw moment and front

wheel angle.

 FIGURE 18   The sideslip angle.

© SAE International.
© SAE International.

 FIGURE 21   The brake pressure of each wheel.

stable in Figure 16, and they can both pass the test successfully
in Figure 19.
On the low adhesion road, laking for enough lateral force,
the vehicle instability is mainly reflected as understeer. To add
more front-wheel angle can’t increase the lateral force as the
tire reaches the saturation state in the lateral direction.
Therefore, in this time, the upper controller attaches more
importance to the additional yaw moment than the additional
front-wheel angle which is no more than 0.02° in Figure 20.
Besides, as the vehicle is at medium speed, the hydraulic
© SAE International.

braking is not triggered in Figure 21, which means the motor

torque is rich to generate the desired yaw moment. Although
the results show little difference between the two ways, the
distribution of additional yaw moment to four wheels over a
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12 THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL

 FIGURE 22   The motor torque of each wheel.  FIGURE 24   The vehicle speed.

© SAE International.

© SAE International.
 FIGURE 25   The yaw rate.

 FIGURE 23   The steering wheel angle.

© SAE International.
© SAE International.

 FIGURE 26   The sideslip angle.

single wheel has a positive significance for vehicle

riding comfort.
When the road adhesion coefficient and target velocity
are set to 0.8 and 120km/h, the results are shown as follows.
It is obvious that, in this condition, the vehicle does not
lose stability completely, but the two control ways show
different effectiveness in ensuring vehicle stability. On the one
hand, Figures 25 and 26 indicate that the coordinated strategy
shows better performance on the yaw rate and sideslip angle
than that without Active Front-wheel Steering control. On the
© SAE International.

other hand, the driver has a lower peak of steering wheel angle
in Figure 23 and the wheel brake pressure is also relatively
lower in Figure 29, which means that the proposed strategy
is conducive to improving the ride comfort as well.
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THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL 13

 FIGURE 27   The path of the vehicle.  FIGURE 30   The motor torque of each wheel.
© SAE International.

 FIGURE 28  The additional yaw moment and front wheel angle. © SAE International.

Conclusions
To realize the integrated stability control for the distributed
electric vehicle, firstly, this article has designed a detailed
hierarchical structure strategy including three levels, then,
the upper and medium controllers have been introduced
particularly. Finally, to verify the strategy, the HIL tests have
been conducted under the condition of Sine with Dwell
Waveform and Double Line Change. The results have shown
that the strategy proposed in this paper could improve vehicle
stability and riding comfort compared with the conventional
yaw moment control strategy.
© SAE International.

References
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 FIGURE 29   The brake pressure of each wheel.
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THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTEGRATED STABILITY CONTROL 15

Symbols Interpretations s Laplace factor

Ttari target torques of each motor τωr response time of the yaw rate
Ttqi maximum torques each motor can output τβ response time of the sideslip angle
Tmax peak torque of the motor Δωr-th-in entrance threshold of the yaw rate
ne the speed at the rated power and peak torque Δωr-th-out exit threshold of the yaw rate
n actual speed of the motor Δβ-th-in entrance threshold of the sideslip angle
Pe rated power of the motor Δβ-th-out exit threshold of the sideslip angle
Ti actual torques of each motor kβ correction coefficient of the sideslip angle
Ptar target pressure of brake wheel kωr correction coefficient of the yaw rate
P actual pressure of brake wheel k∆M correction coefficient of additional yaw moment
lf distance from the center of mass to front axis k∆δ correction coefficient of additional front-wheel angle
lr distance from the center of mass to rear axis ζ parameter of the sigmoid function
L wheelbase ξ parameter of the sigmoid function
B axle track FMVSS Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard
m total mass of the vehicle A basic amplitude of Sine with Dwell Waveform
K stability factor of the vehicle ωrpeak peak yaw rate
k1 cornering stiffness of front tire ωr-1s yaw rate at 1 s after the end of test signal
k2 cornering stiffness of rear tire ωr-1.75s yaw rate at 1.75 s after the end of test signal
g gravitational constant Y1.07s lateral offset at 1.07 s after the start of the signal

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This paper is based upon a presentation at the SAE 2020 Automotive Security & Safety Technology Congress.

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