Comparison of anti-jerk controllers for electric vehicles with on-board motors

Anti-jerk controllers actively suppress the torsional oscillations of automotive drivetrains, caused by abrupt variations of the traction torque. The main benefits are: i) enhanced passengers’ comfort; and ii) increased component life. Extensive literature deals with the design of anti-jerk controllers for electric powertrains with on-boardmotors, i.e., in which the electricmotor is part of the sprung mass of the vehicle, and transmits torque to the wheels through a transmission, half-shafts and constant velocity joints. Nevertheless, a complete and structured comparison of the performance of the different control options is still missing. This study addresses the gap through the assessment of six anti-jerk controllers – five exemplary formulations from the literature, and one novel formulation based on explicit nonlinearmodel predictive control (eNMPC). All proposed control structures have the potential to be implemented on production vehicles. A set of objective performance indicators is defined to assess the controllers, which are tuned through an optimization-based routine.Results showthat the wheel speed input is critical to enhance controller performance, but may lead to reduced robustness.