The Application of Control and Wheel Torque Allocation Techniques to Driving Modes for Fully Electric Vehicles

The combination of continuously-acting high level controllers and control allocation techniques allows various driving modes to be made available to the driver. The driving modes modify the fundamental vehicle performance characteristics including the understeer characteristic and also enable varying emphasis to be placed on aspects such as tire slip and energy efficiency. In this study, control and wheel torque allocation techniques are used to produce three driving modes. Using simulation of an empirically validated model that incorporates the dynamics of the electric powertrains, the vehicle performance, longitudinal slip and power utilization during straight-ahead driving and cornering maneuvers under the different driving modes are compared. The three driving modes enable significant changes to the vehicle behavior to be induced, allowing the responsiveness of the car to the steering wheel inputs and the lateral acceleration limits to be varied according to the selected driving mode. Furthermore, the different driving modes have a significant impact on the longitudinal tire slip, the motor power losses and the total power utilization. The control and wheel torque allocation methods do not rely on complex and computationally demanding online optimization schemes and can thus be practically implemented on real fully electric vehicles. Copyright © 2014 SAE International