Implementation of torque vectoring and active rear-wheel steering control to the scale-down three-wheeled urban electric vehicle

Abstract

This paper shows the feasibility of torque vectoring and active rear-wheel steering control to the three-wheeled urban electric vehicle by implementing control to the scale-down vehicle. A Three-wheeled Urban Electric Vehicle is one of the new concept of future vehicles. This concept is getting popular due to CO2 emission regulation, environmental pollution and rising energy demands. The Three-wheeled Urban Electric Vehicle (TWUEV) has high-efficiency and easy-parking mechanism because of its three-wheeled structure and in-wheel motor technology. However, the vehicle has different handling and ride feeling and lateral stability by the characteristics of three-wheeled structure and rear-wheel steering system. From this reason, reference model following controller (MFC) has developed to emulate ideal four-wheel steering vehicle’s dynamic characteristic. Furthermore, the controller should be applicable in real world. So, 1/5 scaled model vehicle is designed with R/C car component. Wheel speed encoder and 6-DOF IMU sensor are installed with Arduino controller. Arduino control logic is developed with considering hardware limitations such as motor torque limitation and road-tire friction coefficient. In this research, the reference following controller for the scale-down three-wheeled urban electric vehicle is designed and verified by experiment.