An adaptive hierarchical control approach of vehicle handling stability improvement based on Steer-by-Wire Systems

Abstract This paper proposes a novel adaptive hierarchical control approach for Steer-by-Wire (SbW) vehicles to improve the handling stability. The high-level stability control scheme contains a variable steering ratio (VSR) strategy based on the adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and an active front steering (AFS) controller designed with the integral sliding mode method by tracking the expected yaw rate, in which the desired front wheel angle is generated to enhance the cornering stability performance. Besides, an adaptive tracking controller (ATC) for the SbW system is designed by using the adaptive sliding mode control method to achieve desired steering performance in the lower level. The proposed adaptive control strategy is validated with different driving circles from ISO standards in simulation tests and hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) experiments. The results demonstrate that the designed control approach improve the vehicle handling stability significantly, even in some extreme driving conditions.