A numerical algorithm for nonlinear L2-gain optimal control with application to vehicle yaw stability control

This paper is concerned with L2-gain optimal control approach for coordinating the active front steering and differential braking to improve vehicle yaw stability and cornering control. The vehicle dynamics with respect to the tire slip angles is formulated and disturbances are added on the front and rear cornering forces characteristics modelling, for instance, variability on road friction. The mathematical model results in input-affine nonlinear system. A numerical algorithm based on conjugate gradient method to solve L2-gain optimal control problem is presented. The proposed algorithm, which has backward-in-time structure, directly finds the feedback control and the "worst case" disturbance variables. Simulations of the controller in closed-loop with the nonlinear vehicle model are shown and discussed