Decoupling of vehicle lateral dynamics using four-wheel steering system

Abstract

The era of highly automated and namely renaissance of electric vehicles brings new vehicle interior configuration and concept of operations. The fully independent steering for each wheel vehicle concepts are reality. This paper presents a lateral control algorithm providing both low and more important high velocity dynamical steering capabilities. The main contribution of the presented work is utter decoupling of vehicle lateral motion. The car side velocity and cornering maneuver could be commanded and executed independently, assuring higher stability during high speed/highway maneuvers and unmatched nimbleness at low speed/city operations. Furthermore, the wheel side slip angle based control system provides full and independent utilization of each wheel traction ellipse in a lateral sense. Therefore the active safety on wheel level in guaranteed as the tire to road limits are actively preserved for each wheel. The resulting steer-by-wire systems seamlessly augment human driver commands and provides autonomous vehicles with active stabilization functionality.