Sliding Mode Fault-Tolerant Controller for Overactuated Electric Vehicles with Active Steering

Abstract

This paper addresses the tracking problem of the state variables of a nonlinear planar dynamic model of an overactuated electric vehicle with four-wheel independent drive (4WID) topology. In order to track the state variables of the system it is proposed a new sliding mode controller based on a nonlinear planar model. The controller explores the overactuated system in order to redistribute the control effort to the remaining actuators when a fault occurs. Although the system has multiple solutions due to the access of the torque applied in each wheel independently, there could be particular fault events where the remaining healthy actuators may not be able to maintain the system stability. In those particular cases the inclusion of the steering control variable is an important advantage as it allows the controller to manipulate the control effort in any directions. The proposed controller is validated in various driving scenarios with different fault schemes. The simulations are carried out with a high-fidelity vehicular model provided by the simulation software Carsim in co-simulation with Matlab/Simulink.