Integrated vehicle dynamics control has been an important research topic in the area of vehicle dynamics and control over the past two decades. The aim of integrated vehicle control is to improve the overall vehicle performance including handling, stability, and comfort through creating synergies in the use of sensor information, hardware, and control strategies. This paper proposes a two-layer hierarchical control architecture for integrated control of the active suspension system (ASS) and the electronic stability programme (ESP). The upper-layer controller is designed to coordinate the interactions between the ASS and the ESP. While in the lower layer, the two controllers including the ASS and the ESP are developed independently to achieve their local control objectives. Both a simulation investigation and a hardware-in-the-loop experimental study are performed. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed hierarchical control system is able to improve the multiple vehicle performance indices including both the ride comfort and the lateral stability, compared with the non-integrated control system. Moreover, the experimental results verify the effectiveness of the design of the hierarchical control system.

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This paper investigates integrated vehicle dynamics control through coordinating active suspension system (ASS) and electronic stability program (ESP) in order to improve the overall vehicle performance including handling, stability, and comfort. A two-layer hierarchical control architecture is proposed to integrated control of the two chassis control systems. The upper layer controller is designed to coordinate the interactions between the ASS and the ESP. While in the lower layer, the two controllers including the ASS and the ESP, are developed independently to achieve their local control objectives. Simulation investigation is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical control system. Results show that the proposed hierarchical control system is able to improve the multiple performance indices of the vehicle including both the ride comfort and the lateral stability, compared to the non-integrated control system.