Going beyond the limit: use the unexploited domain of maneuverability to negotiate safe vehicle cornering
摘要
Motion stability and maneuverability are critical factors that govern and constrain the performance of both the vehicle and its active systems. Fully exploiting tire–road contact mechanics is fundamental for developing advanced motion control systems. This paper addresses the challenge of out-of-limit dynamic control for vehicle motion, aiming to expand the stable maneuvering domain to a global range thereby preventing bifurcational instabilities triggered by excessive handling inputs. A four-wheeled vehicle model is developed, incorporating a unified representation of combined tire forces using the Magic Formula (MF) and TMeasy models. The problem is subsequently formulated as an instability issue in oversteered vehicles. To provide a reference for control design in unstable handling domains, the creation of a new equilibrium point through additional open-loop wheel torque is proposed. Model-inverse calculations reveal that the existence and location of this new equilibrium are directly influenced by the magnitude of the applied open-loop torque. When properly tuned, the open-loop torque enables stabilization of an oversteered vehicle under arbitrary driving input combinations. To evaluate both local and global stability, a modified handling diagram is introduced, which analytically derives bifurcation criteria. Under this framework, a delayed feedback control scheme is designed and optimized to improve the settling rate of the response signal. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is validated through Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) tests, which confirm that the controlled vehicle system achieves the desired performance and safety in both perturbed steady-state and transient maneuvers. As the current strategy only requires single-wheel torque control, it offers broad applicability to various vehicle configurations.