On Torque Vectoring Control: Review and Comparison of State-of-the-Art Approaches

Abstract

Torque vectoring is a widely known technique to improve vehicle handling and to increase stability in limit conditions. With the advent of electric vehicles, this is becoming a key topic since it is possible to have distributed powertrains, i.e., multiple motors are adopted, in which each motor is controlled separately from the others. Moreover, electric motors deliver the torque required by the controller faster and more precisely than internal combustion engines, active differentials and conventional hydraulic brakes. The state of the art of Direct Yaw Moment Control (DYC) techniques, ranging from classical to modern control theories, are analyzed and discussed in this paper. The aim is to give an overview of the currently available approaches while identifying their drawbacks regarding performances and robustness when dealing with common issues like model uncertainties, external disturbances, friction limit and common state estimation problems. This contribution analyzes all the steps from the lateral dynamics reference generation to the desired control action computation and allocation to the available actuators. In addition, some of the presented control logic is evaluated in a simulation environment for a passenger car. Results of both open-loop and closed-loop maneuvers allow the comparison and clarification of each control strategy’s key advantages.

Torque Vectoring Control as an Energy-Efficient Alternative to Vehicle Suspensions Tuning

“…Indeed, thanks to the deployment of In-Wheel Motors (IWMs) [10], it is possible to easily deploy torque vectoringTorque Vectoring (TV) to vehicles for controlling their lateral dynamics through the application of a yaw moment. Indeed, through the years, several TV controllers have been proposed [11,12] with the objective of improving vehicle lateral dynamics by actively following a yaw rate and/or sideslip angle reference. Conversely, there are also contributions that propose the use of TV with the sole objective of improving the overall vehicle efficiency [13,14].…”