Layered Control Strategy for the Maneuvering Stability of Distributed Electric Drive Semi-trailer Trucks

This paper addresses the issues of lateral instability and rollover that often occur when semi-trailer trucks maneuver to avoid obstacles at high speeds. It proposes a distributed electric drive anti-skid and torque coordination control strategy for semi-trailer trucks based on LQR. Using TruckSim and Matlab/Simulink, a high-precision distributed electric drive semi-trailer truck dynamics model was constructed for dual-lane high-adhesion and single-lane low-adhesion road conditions. An upper-layer controller based on a PID speed-following controller and linear quadratic optimal control theory (LQR) was designed for the tractor and trailer, respectively, to apply additional lateral torque. The lower layer employs an extremum optimization method to allocate drive torque among the wheels, and a fuzzy PID anti-slip controller is designed to output corrective torque to prevent excessive wheel slip. The results show that this strategy effectively improves the lateral stability of the semi-trailer truck train. Under dual lane-changing high-adhesion conditions, the vehicle’s center of gravity lateral deviation angle is reduced by 27% compared to the uncontrolled condition. Under single lane-changing low-adhesion conditions, the vehicle’s center of gravity lateral deviation angle is reduced by 31% compared to the uncontrolled condition.