Sliding mode control for an electric vehicle with differential speed

In this paper, a control scheme to regulate the speed in an electric vehicle with two electric motors in the rear axle. In order to make a turn in the vehicle a differential speed in the motors is needed. A detailed mathematical model of the electric vehicle is included, comprising the dynamics of the components in the system, as well as their interconnections. An inverse kinematic controller is presented to calculate the required speed references for the motors. Taking into account the references, a robust sliding mode controller is presented, to guarantee the stability of the complete system. The proposed control scheme was tested in closed - loop through simulations to prove the performance. The results show a good performance under different perturbations, such that parameter variations and external disturbances, in this case, driver mass and road slope. Furthermore, the discretization and a proposal to implement the control scheme controller in an embedded system are presented. © 2021 Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. All rights reserved.