TORQUE DISTRIBUTION CONTROL FOR MULTI-WHEELED COMBAT VEHICLE

Multi-wheeled combat vehicles behavior depends not only on the available total driving torque but also on its distribution among the drive axles/wheels. In turn, this distribution is largely regulated by the drivetrain layout and its torque distribution devices. In this paper, a multi-wheeled (8x4) combat vehicle bicycle model has been developed and used to obtain the desired yaw rate and lateral acceleration to become reference for the design of the controllers. PID controllers were designed as upper and lower layers of the controllers. The upper controller develops the corrective yaw moment, which is the input to the lower controller to manage the independent torque distribution (torque vectoring) among the driving wheels. Several simulation maneuvers have been performed at different vehicle speeds using Matlab/Simulink-TruckSim to investigate the proposed torque vectoring control strategy. The simulation results with the proposed controller showed a significant improvement over conventional driveline, especially at severe maneuvers.