Fault-tolerant trajectory tracking control of in-wheel motor vehicles with energy-efficient steering and torque distribution

In this chapter a reconfigurable trajectory -tracking control design method has been presented for autonomous in-wheel electric vehicles with independently controlled hub motors and the steer-by-wire steering system. The high-level control reconfiguration has been implemented through the design of a scheduling variable using the LPV framework in order to deal with fault events, while in normal operating conditions the objective of the reconfiguration is to maximize battery SOC, thus enhancing the range of the in-wheel electric vehicle. The energy optimal control reconfiguration has been designed based on the results of preliminary simulations with a high-fidelity vehicle and electrical models on different road conditions. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed method has been demonstrated in a real-data CarSim simulation, showing significant energy saving by the proposed method