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Integrated traction control strategy for 4-motorized-wheels electric vehicles

with improvement of economy and longitudinal driving stability

Conference Paper · September 2016

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Beijing Institute of Technology Technische Universität Berlin
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 AVEC'16
Integrated Traction Control Strategy for 4-Motorized-Wheels Electric
Vehicles with Improvement of Economy and Longitudinal Driving
Stability
Xudong Zhang & Dietmar Göhlich
Product Development Methods and Mechatronics, Technical University of Berlin, Germany

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an integrated traction control strategy (ITCS) for 4-motorized-wheels elec-
tric vehicles. The purpose of this proposed strategy is to improve vehicle economy and longitudinal stability.
On high adhesion roads, economy optimization algorithm is applied to maximize motors efficiency by means
of the optimized torque distribution. On low adhesion roads, sliding mode control (SMC) algorithm is imple-
mented to guarantee the wheel slip ratio under the target slip ratio to make full use of road driving capacity.
Since the optimal slip ratio on different road conditions varies a lot, a quasi-optimal slip ratio is introduced
and set as the target value. The integrated traction control strategy is designed for combining the vehicle econ-
omy and longitudinal stability via three torque allocation cases: economy-based torque allocation, pedal self-
correcting torque allocation and inter-axle torque allocation. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed
strategy effectively reduces vehicle energy consumption, suppresses wheel skid and enhances the vehicle lon-
gitudinal driving performance.

1 INTRODUCTION gy consumption only led by unnecessary wheel spin

During the past years, due to the energy crisis and
environmental concerns, electric vehicles have be-
come a fast-growing hotspot [1]. With the improve-
ments on the electric motor and motor controller
technology, many possibilities of the power train
configurations are proposed [2]. One of the latest
configurations is known as 4-motorized-wheels EVs,
which employs four motors that are integrated to
each wheel and controlled independently. This con-
figuration has many advantages such as quick and
accurate torque response, easier torque and RPM
measurement, independent control for one single
motor, which provides a broad prospect for vehicle
dynamic improvement.
Traction control is a very significant aspect of ve-
hicle dynamic control, which greatly influences the
vehicle stability, safety and even economy. There-
fore, lots of studies have been carried out so far fo-
cusing on this area. Due to its robustness sliding
mode control has more and more applied in vehicle
traction control. H. Wen et al. presented an accelera-
tion slip regulation strategy based on sliding mode
control [4]. In his research slip ratio calculation for-
mula in the form of a state equation is used for solv-
ing the numerical problem caused by the traditional
way. In purely economy terms, Nam, K. proposed a
traction-ability and energy efficiency improvement
method using wheel slip control. However the ener-
can be reduced [5]. X. Yuan utilized the independent
characteristics of traction motors to develop a torque
distribution method for decreasing EV energy [6]. In
spite of this, most of the control strategies are in-
complete, for they only put the focus on either stabil-
ity or energy saving, while taking insufficient ac-
count of different road conditions.
In the presented strategy, vehicle efficiency is op-
timized through rational distribution of total driving
torque between front and rear wheels. Sliding mode
control is used to calculate the torque which can
make the tire reach the quasi-optimal slip ratio point.
The quasi-optimal slip ratio is proposed to avoid the
error during the identification of road friction level.
Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed integrated
traction control strategy (ITCS) for both energy sav-
ing performance and longitudinal stability is validat-
ed in Matlab/Simulink.
2 VEHICLE MODELING
A detailed and comprehensive vehicle model must
be used in order to accurately simulate the vehicle
response under various maneuvers. Here the vehicle
model developed and verified by Dirk E. Smith et al.
[7] is utilized as the full vehicle model. The longitu-
dinal velocity, lateral velocity, yaw rate, roll rate and
four tire rotations lead to 8-DOF. The effects of tire
 AVEC'16
force saturation, tire side force lag, tire normal load motor operating conditions, then motors efficiency
transfer etc. are all included. Besides, each wheel of will be improved [8]. Taking regenerative braking
the vehicle is individually driven by a DC motor into consideration, the following economy objective
through a fixed reduction gear. The motor torque ex- functions are established,
ternal characteristics and efficiency map are shown 4 4
ni ⋅ Ti
in Figure 1. For calculation simplification, it is as-
sumed that the motor efficiency of regenerative brak-
min J d = ∑ P = ∑ η (T , n )
i =1− 4
i
i =1− 4
(3)
i i i
ing condition is identical with that of driving condi-
tion. 4 4
max J r = ∑ Pi = ∑ ni⋅ ⋅ Ti ⋅ηi (T i, ni )
i =1− 4 i =1− 4
(4)

The objective functions should satisfy the follow-

ing equality constraints and inequality constraints,
such as the desired driving torque Td, the motor
properties and a few assumptions.
 4

 ∑ Ti = Td
 i =1− 4
T1 + T3 ≥ T2 + T (5)
 T ≤T
 i motor

where Tmotor is the motor maximum torque output.
For the sake of simplicity, a few assumptions are
Figure. 1 Motor external characteristics and efficiency map listed:
(1) The slip ratio and rotational speed difference of
The motor’s torque response can be simplified as each wheel is quite small and hence, the motor rota-
first-order inertia as the following equation tional speed n equals beta·u/r.
Tcmdi (2) The torque output is identical if the motors are on
Ti = (1) the same axle.
τ ⋅ s +1 Despite its simplification, these assumptions are
where Ti is the motor’s torque output, Tcmdi is the still justified, since only longitudinal dynamic is dis-
torque command signal and τ is the time constant. cussed here and economy control will be activated
Since motor power is the function of motor effi- only when the controller is fully sure that the car
ciency, rotational speed and torque output, based on runs stable. The assumptions can be formulated as,
the efficiency map in Figure 1, the motor power can

 T1 = T3 = T f / 2 = p ⋅ Td / 2
be easily calculated as



ni ⋅ Ti
, Driving condition T2 = T4 = Tr / 2 = (1 − p ) ⋅ Td / 2
Pi =  η i (Ti ，n i ) (2)  u
ni ⋅ T ⋅ η i (Ti ，n i ),  n = beta ⋅
Regeneration condition r
where Pi and ni denote the motor power and rota- where p∈ [0.5, 1] is economy distribution coeffi-
tional speed; ηi is the motor efficiency. cient; Tf is the front axle driving torque; Tr is the rear
axle driving torque. Then the final economy objec-
tive function is obtained,
3 INTEGRATED CONTROL STRATEGY

J d = n
p ⋅ Td
+
(1 − p ) ⋅ Td 
 (6)
3.1 Economy-based Control η[0.5 p ⋅ Td , n] η[0.5(1 − p ) ⋅ Td , n] 

  pT   (1 − p)Td  
3.1.1 Objective functions establishment J r = n pTdη  d , n + (1 − p)Tdη  , n   (7)
The relationship among the motor’s torque, RPM   2   2 
and efficiency is shown in Figure 1. The motor effi-
ciency is quite distinguishing in different working
3.1.2 Solutions to objective functions
regions and especially when it works in the low
In this paper, genetic algorithm is applied to solve
speed or low torque output region, the motor has
these discontinuous objective functions. It can effec-
poor efficiency. If the driving torque can be in real-
tively prevent local optimization and find the solu-
time distributed among four motors according to
tions accurately and rapidly.
 AVEC'16
The objective functions solution p, is given as a conditions. The objective function and inequality
two dimensional lookup table with current desired constraints for solving this quasi-optimal slip ratio
driving torque and motor rotational speed, which can are expressed as Equation (9).
avoid numerous online calculations and meet system
µi (λopt ) − µi (λqo )
real-time requirements. The economy-based distribu- min f (λ ) = ∑ (9)
tion coefficient p is shown in Figure 2. µi (λopt )

S.T. µi (λqo ) µi (λopt ) ≥ 90%

the solution of which is 14.3 % easily obtained by
1 solving nonlinear programming problem. In Table 2,
it can be seen that the normalized driving force
Distribution Coefficient

0.9
achieved under the proposed quasi-optimal slip ratio
0.8
is almost as same as the one under optimal slip ratio.
0.7

0.6 8000 Table 2. Normalized driving force comparison

6000
0.5 Dry Wet Dry
400 4000 Roads Snow Ice
200 asphalt asphalt concrete
µ i (λqo )
0 2000
-200
Torque(N*m)
-400 0 RPM(r/min)
µ i (λopt )
99.7% 99.8% 99.9% 97.0% 99.7%

Figure. 2 Economy-based distribution coefficient map

3.2.2 Slip ratio control algorithm
In this section, a sliding mode controller is devel-
3.2 Stability-based Control oped to make the actual wheel slip ratio track the
quasi-optimal slip ratio described above. Then the
3.2.1 Quasi-optimal slip ratio track error is defined as
The so-called “optimal slip ratio ” λopt is the slip ra-
e = λ − λqo (10)
tio value that can produce the maximum longitudinal
traction force. However, for actual vehicles and where the slip ratio λ is calculated as the following
roads, optimal slip ratio is not a constant value. It equation.
changes due to the road conditions and its variation
range is as much as 20%. Typical methods to esti- ω ⋅r −u ω
λ= = −1 (11)
mate the friction coefficient is to use the information u ω0
of the slip ratio and normalized driving force Ft/Fz to
match the standard µ-λ curves. However, it is not where u means the wheel’s center velocity that
easy to obtain the slip ratio and Ft/Fz signals accu- equals to the vehicle body velocity since this article
rately especially on the low slip ratio condition. focuses on the longitudinal dynamics.
Therefore, to avoid the error during the road identifi- Then define a switching function s as follows
cation the quasi-optimal slip ratio λqo is proposed
based on Burckhardt friction model s = e + c ∫ e dt (12)

µ (λ ) = c1 (1 − e− c λ ) − c3λ 2
(8) which represents the designed sliding surface. In this
paper, exponential reaching law is selected and giv-
The friction model parameters of typical road sur-
en as
faces, and corresponding optimal slip ratios λopt and
maximum normalized driving forces are given in s& = − ks − ε sgn(s ) (13)
Table 1.
where c is the strictly positive constant gain and ε is
Table 1. Burckhardt friction model parameters reaching velocity factor.
Taking the derivative of Equation (12), and sub-
Roads c1 c2 c3 λopt µ(λopt)
stituting into Equation (13) gives
Dry asphalt 1.280 23.99 0.52 0.17 1.17
Wet asphalt 0.857 33.82 0.347 0.13 0.80 − ε sgn(s) = e& + ce = λ& + e(λ − λqo ) (14)
Dry concrete 1.197 25.16 0.537 0.16 1.09
Snow 0.194 94.12 0.065 0.06 0.19 Since for 4-motorized-wheels EVs each wheel is
Ice 0.05 306.3 0 0.03 0.05 independently controlled by a motor, we have the
wheel torque balance equation as
The fixed quasi-optimal slip ratio λqo is not the
optimal choice for one particular road condition.
J w w& = Tq ⋅ beta − Ft ⋅ r (15)
However µ(λqo) is most close to µ(λopt) on all road

where Tq is defined as the torque which can make
tires reach the quasi-optimal slip ratio.
Taking derivative of the wheel slip ratio that is
Equation (11) and substituting it into (15), the wheel
slip ratio dynamic equation is obtained,
u u&
λ& = (To ⋅ beta − F t ⋅r ) +
J wω 2 r ω ⋅r
The sliding mode control law is derived by substi-
tuting Equation (16) into Equation (14),
J wω 2u&
Tq = −[ε sgn( s ) + ks + c(λ − λqo )]
u ⋅ beta
J ω ⋅ u& Ft ⋅ r
+ w +
u ⋅ beta beta
Finally, to reduce high-frequency chattering due
to the non-deterministic switching control, a satura-
tion function sat(s/Φ)is applied instead of sgn(s),
where Φ is a positive constant which determines the
AVEC'16
despite the total road adhesion is more than the driv-
er desired torque, however, if the car is running on a
joint road, the friction coefficient for front and rear
wheels will be different. Or due to the vehicle load
distribution, the wheel with lower vertical load can
only be applied with relatively small traction. Oth-
(16) erwise, it may lead to a seriously tire skid. Converse-
ly, for the wheel with larger vertical load, it is neces-
sary to moderately increase its motor torque output
to make full use of the road capacity.
By comparing different torque signals including
driver desired torque, current motor torque output
and quasi-optimal slip ratio torque, a suitable control
(17) case will be activated and kept operating until the
vehicle running condition changes. Then the system
needs to reselect the corresponding control case con-
stantly to guarantee the control strategy’s adaptabil-
ity under different conditions.
Driver desired
torque Td
Current motor
state Ti, ni
Slip ratio
λi

thickness of the saturation boundary layer. Control input

3.3 Integrated Control Strategy Design Wheel skids

Y

N
The integrated control strategy aiming at the econo- Y
N
my optimization and stability control is proposed All wheels skid

based on the analysis of the driver desired torque, Y

Case 1 Case 2 Case 3

motor output and road driving capability. Driver de-
sired torque is denoted by Td and is proportional to Efficiency-Based
Pedal Self-
Correcting Torque
Inter-Axles Torque
Torque Allocation Allocation
accelerator pedal position. Allocation
N N
As shown in Figure 3, the control system diagram Wheel skids Wheel skids
includes control input and control case selection. Y Y
The latter is the main part of the proposed strategy. Control case selection

Three cases are designed and given as follows: T1 T2 T3 T4

Motor
Case 1: economy-based torque allocation: controller

It corresponds to high adhesion road. When a ve-

Figure. 3 Integrated traction control strategy diagram
hicle is traveling on this kind of surface, the traction
for each tire offered by the road is greater than the
actual motor output, which means in this situation no
tire skid issues exists for this vehicle. Therefore, 4 SIMULATION RRESULTS AND ANALYSIS
economy-based torque allocation is activated prefer-
entially. The purpose of this section is to verify the pro-
Case 2: pedal self-correcting torque allocation: posed integrated control strategy using computer
It corresponds to low adhesion road. When a ve- simulations. The vehicle parameters are listed in the
hicle is driving on a low adhesion road like snow Table 3.
road or even quick starts and stops on wet cement
road, sometimes the road adhesion capacity cannot Table 3. Vehicle parameters
meet the driver’s torque request, which will lead to Parameters Values
tire’s unstable skid. In order to avoid this situation, Vehicle mass 1280 kg
the acceleration pedal coefficient must be adjusted to Vehicle inertia about Z axis 2460 kg·m²
a reasonable region to guarantee vehicle stability. Distance of c.g. from front axle 1.2 m
Pedal self-correcting torque allocation is designed to Distance of c.g. from rear axle 1.3 m
keep actual wheel slip ratio at the quasi-optimal slip Wheels track 1.5 m
ratio point, to make the most of the road friction and Air resistance coefficient 0.35
to meet the driver desired torque as far as possible. Reducer ratio 3.5
Case 3: inter-axles torque allocation: Reducer efficiency 0.9
It corresponds to intermediate adhesion road. In Tire effective rolling radius 0.3 m
addition to high and low adhesion road, sometimes Height of the sprung mass c.g. 0.5 m
Wheel rotational inertia 2.22 kg·m²
 AVEC'16
4.1 Simulation for economy-based control (a)
4

This economy evaluation is carried out according to 4WEDT FWD ITCS

thermal power [kW]

3
the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). The 4-
wheel even torque drive (4WETD) and front-wheel- 2

drive (FWD) are chosen to compare with the pro- 1

posed integrated traction control strategy (ITCS).
Figure 5 and Figure 6 show the simulation results. 0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
time [s]
(b)
120

thermal power improvement [%]

80
4WEDT/ITCS FWD/ITCS
100
vehicle velocity [km/h]

60
80

60 40

40 20

20
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 time [s]
time [s]

Figure. 4 New European driving cycle Figure. 6 Thermal power and improvement

Figure 5 illustrates that vehicle working efficien- Table 4. Improvement results analysis
cy is significantly improved after adopting economy- Energy Consumption (kJ) Equivalent
Cycle Energy
based torque allocation. In some conditions, the im- Weight
Stage ITCS Saving
provement rate even reaches around 15%. Besides, Reduction
as Figure 6 shows, the economy-based torque alloca- Low 4WETD 919.2 5.26% 65.21 kg
tion also achieves lower thermal loss than the others, 870.9
Speed FWD 947.1 8.04% 96.34 kg
which can reduce motor’s heat load and prolong its High 4WETD 1267.0 8.06% 97.54 kg
service life. 1164
Speed FWD 1173.4 0.46% 17.65 kg
Table 4 lists the simulation results of economy Whole 4WETD 2186.2 6.88% 75.43 kg
improvement and equivalent weight reduction in 2036
Cycle FWD 2120.4 4.00% 51.22 kg
each driving cycle stage. The highest energy saving
occurs in high speed stage. Economy-based torque
allocation decreases 8.06% energy consumption 4.2 Simulation for stability-based control
compared with 4WETD. Lowest energy saving, In order to test the validity and robustness of the
0.46%, also occurs in high speed stage but it’s rela- stability performance of the proposed control strate-
tive to FWD. As for the whole driving cycle, econ- gy, a compressive simulation experiment is addition-
omy-based torque allocation can decrease 6.88% and ally carried out under strongly varying conditions,
4.00% energy consumption respectively, by compar- which contains the switching of different road condi-
ison to 4WETD and FWD. If we use weight to tions and driver desired torque. The road surface in-
measure the energy saving effect, it means 75.43 kg put for front tires in this simulation is listed in Table
and 51.22 kg weight reduction equivalently, which is 5. The time delay of the road switching for front and
difficult to achieve in engineering design phase. rear tires is also taken into consideration. In this
1
(a)
simulation, the accelerator pedal position is set at
4WEDT FWD ITCS 85%. After 9 s, the vehicle velocity reaches 60 km/h
motor efficiency [-]

0.9
and then the accelerator pedal is released to 28%
0.8 opening.
0.7
Table 5. Road surface input for front wheels
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Distance (m) Tire/Road Friction Coefficient
time [s]
(b)
0 - 10 0.8
35
10 - 50 0.1
efficiency improvement [%]

30 4WEDT/ITCS

25
FWD/ITCS 50 - 80 0.2
20 80 - end 0.9
15
10
5
As shown in Figure 7, in the first 2.3 seconds, the
0
car is running on a high adhesion road. The traction
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
time [s] capacity provided by the road is much greater the
driver desired torque. Therefore, Case 1 economy-
Figure 5. Working efficiency and improvement based torque allocation is activated as shown in Fig-
ure 7(d). According to current torque and RPM sig-
 AVEC'16
nals, the economy coefficient p is set as 0.5, which aiming at improving economy and longitudinal driv-
means even torque allocation is applied. And then, ing stability. According to the economy-based distri-
the front wheels move into the low adhesion area bution coefficient, driver desired torque is allocated
firstly and the rear wheels are still in the high adhe- reasonably among four driving motors, which max-
sion area. The control case switches from Case 1 to imizes the motor driving efficiency and improves
Case 3 inter-axles torque allocation as shown in Fig- overall vehicle economy. Meanwhile, pedal self-
ure 7(d). Based on sliding mode control, the torque correcting torque allocation and inter-axle torque al-
output of front motors should be reduced to prevent location are moreover designed to overcome vehicle
the slip ratio from skidding. At the same time, the stability problems on low adhesion road. By means
controller raises the rear motors output to ensure the of solving nonlinear programming problem, the qua-
vehicle dynamic performance to meet the driver’s si-optimal slip ratio on different road surfaces is ob-
demand as shown in Figure 7(b). When all the four tained as a fixed value. Based on sliding mode con-
wheels move into the low adhesion road, Case 2 pe- trol, the torque output of each motor is adjusted to
dal self-correcting torque allocation is activated. At keep the wheel slip ratio under the target slip ratio
about 6.4 seconds, the friction coefficient changes rapidly and stably. It can be concluded that the pro-
from 0.1 to 0.2, however the Case 2 keeps running, posed ITCS is able to balance the relationship be-
since its condition is still satisfied. Furthermore, it tween road/tire friction conditions, motor efficiency
should be noted that after the accelerator pedal posi- and driver desired torque; achieve vehicle economy
tion decreases from 85% to 28% at the 9th second, and longitudinal stability optimization.
Case 1 starts running, however the front and rear
motors’ outputs are different the torque outputs from
before. That is because through analysis of desired ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
torque and RPM information, economy coefficient p
is reset as 1, front-wheel-drive mode, to make the The work is supported by the BCV project (Berlin
vehicle achieve the optimal economy performance. City Vehicle Project) in Technical University of Ber-
(a)
lin. And the authors would like to thank China
100 Scholarship Council (CSC) for providing a scholar-
displacement [m]

ship as the financial support for the first author to

50
pursue his Ph.D. degree at TU Berlin.
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
time [s]
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In this paper, a novel integrated control strategy and Exhibition.
for 4-motorized-wheels electric vehicles is proposed,

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