MPC-based Torque Distribution for Planar Motion of Four-wheel Independently Driven Electric Vehicles:Considering Motor Models and Iron Losses

The most critical obstacle for four-wheel independently driven electric vehicles(4WID-EVs)is the driving range.Being the actuators of 4WID-EVs,motors account for its major power consumption.In this sense,by properly distributing torques to minimize the power consumption,the driving range of 4WID-EV can be effectively improved.This paper proposes a model predictive control(MPC)-based torque distribution scheme,which minimizes the power consumption of 4WID-EVs while guaranteeing its tracking performance of planar motions.By incorporating the motor model considering iron losses,the optimal torque distribution can be achieved without an additional torque controller.Also,for this reason,the proposed control scheme is computationally efficient,since the power consumption term to be optimized,which is expressed as the product of the motor voltages and currents,is much simpler than that derived from the efficiency map.With reasonable simplification and linearization,the MPC problem is converted to a quadratic programming problem,which can be solved efficiently.The simulation results in MATLAB and CarSim co-simulation environments demonstrate that the proposed scheme effectively reduces power consumption with guaranteed tracking performance.

An Integrated Control Framework for Torque Vectoring and Active Suspension System

Four-wheel independently driven electric vehicles(FWID-EV)endow a flexible and scalable control framework to improve vehicle performance.This paper integrates the torque vectoring and active suspension system(ASS)to enhance the vehicle’s longitudinal and vertical motion control performance.While the nonlinear characteristic of the tire model leads to a relatively heavier computational burden.To facilitate the controller design and ease the load,a half-vehicle dynamics system is built and simplified to the linear-time-varying(LTV)model.Then a model predictive controller is developed by formulating the objective function by comprehensively considering the safety,energy-saving and comfort requirements.The in-wheel motor efficiency and the power loss of tire slip are treated as optimization indices in this work to reduce energy consumption.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed controller is verified through the rapid-control-prototype(RCP)test.The results demonstrate the enhancement of the energy-saving as well as comfort on the basis of vehicle stability.