Integrated Vehicle Dynamics Control – an optimized approach for linking multiple chassis actuators

Mechatronical components are becoming increasingly important in the control of vehicle dynamics. In this paper an innovative approach to networking chassis domain actuators (e.g. rear wheel steering, wheel individual electric drives, active differentials etc.) is presented. By combining state of the art approaches for nonlinear model based feed forward control with an innovative concept to dealing with non quadratic control systems, lateral dynamics performance and driving safety can be enhanced. For this new approach the denotation “Integrated Vehicle Dynamics Control” (IVC) is introduced. Besides objective performance issues, a natural, reproducible and reliable vehicle behavior during all possible types of driving maneuvers was a major development goal. In Addition to this control concept, a new calibration strategy based on four essential, intuitive driving properties is presented. Through measurement results it is shown, that, by applying this new technology, the side slip angle during an aggressive lane change maneuver can be reduced by a factor of five compared to a standard Electronic Stability Controller (ESC). Regarding a typical maneuver for performance assessment – 36 m slalom – with IVC the maximum vehicle speed can be enhanced by 7 kph compared to test runs without any type of lateral dynamics control.