Vehicle modelling for Electronic Stability Control in a four in-wheel electric vehicle

M. M. Al Emran Hasan, H. Mazumder, M. Ektesabi

Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Science Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Victoria, Australia mhasan@swin.edu.au
AbstractDespite numerous available multi-body simulation packages, a vehicle modeling for simulating car-handling control system is presented here considering the existing constrains. The relevant tasks and challenges for modeling and simulating the stability controller for electric vehicle with four in wheels are explained. Co-simulation is common way for multi-dimensions where, interchange of data between these multiple systems show some constrains in required model definition and required input and output structure that may impose some limitation in control algorithm for this kind of advanced vehicle. Also the phenomena of under-prediction in co-simulation due to model coverage is also in considered for modeling this vehicle and controller presented here in the work. Using SIMULINK basic blocks form commonly used tool box, a vehicle body model is developed incorporating longitudinal and lateral motion, front and rear wheel with steering angle, electric motor and controller, physical environment and the stability controller. This research also proposes the possibility of hardware in loop test using these developed modules with reconfiguration. The validation of simulation results discussed here with recent trends in this area.

Keywords- Electric vehicle, stability control, multi body, SIMULINK, vehicle model.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Modeling and simulation has always a big importance in the engineering process. In order to reduce the engineering and cost in terms of money and time, different simulation tools have been used to simulate the entire system before starting physical development. It is also important to model the parts of the systems if not possible to make physically available. Electric Vehicle, consists of four in-wheel motor has a greater flexibility [1] considering its controllability. This is one of the reasons behind the popularity of four in-wheel motor electric vehicle in research. Simulation helps in the design phase to avoid physical multiple testing. But modeling and simulating this system and its environment requires multiple dimensions as it requires converting the electrical energy to mechanical energy which eventually acting on a virtual physical environment. Most common way of simulating these kinds of systems is taking advantages from multiple modeling systems is co-simulation. Vehicle models available in different simulating software tools may not be usable entirely

for a simulation considered here in this research paper. Also a controller designed to control such vehicles may not be available in these software systems. Most common practice is done regarding this kind of simulation is co-simulating the controller developed in SIMULINK with available vehicle model from ADAMS car [2], CarSim [3] or from others advanced vehicle simulating software. Specific software with built in reconfigurable models and control methods from SIMULINK or from other software tools show some constrains in model definition, defining input and output variables, inputs and outputs within the required structure. Without a comprehensive model for this advanced vehicle mentioned here with electrical and mechanical properties, stability control law and algorithm may not be simulate and verified properly. SIMULINK is a powerful software tool to model bits and pieces of the vehicle system according to the design and edition is easily possible. Here, the model has been developed considering the reconfiguration of the vehicle body, wheels, environment and controller. Reconfiguration is needed for hardware in loop test for analyzing the performance of the actuator and sensors. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) is an advanced safety feature, it helps to prevent single vehicle accident in sudden maneuver while spin out or drifting out [4]. ESC has become the requirement for new registered vehicles on the road. For pollution control and green technology, electric vehicle gain popularity in the automotive industries. As new vehicle, the Electric vehicle has become the better option in comparison with the other alternative fuel based vehicles overcoming all constrains regarding distance coverage, vehicle speed and size. Automotive industries are introducing new electric vehicles to the market with different technology. It is important to consider ESC for these new electric cars with in-wheel motors. As these EVs have a different architecture for drive, research is required for handling these vehicles using ESC. II. VEHICLE MODEL

The control analysis and controller design for vehicle motion relay on vehicle dynamics. If new safety feature like ESC is concern for intelligent control then control analysis require a vehicle model that includes all the components of vehicle dynamics those affecting on vehicle stability. It indicates the need of a detailed and comprehensive vehicle model to reproduce the behavior of individual components as exactly as possible. Such a vehicle modeling requires

equations of motions and interactions between subsystems which are in the form of mathematical equation. Using these mathematical equations, computer model is made that helps to analyze the controller before prototyping. Vehicle models are very specific to the goal of it. Instead of using a generalized vehicle model a specific vehicle model is developed here for ESC. The schematic diagram is given in fig.1 for ESC controller with vehicle model. Schematic diagram in fig 1 shows the subsystems which includes: 1. Vehicle body 2. Electric motor 3. Wheel 4. Suspension 5. Road and environment 6. ESC controller Some other sub systems are underlying behind the major block which shown in vehicle modeling 7. Desire yaw rate 8. Desire slip angle 9. Control law 10. Motor driver 11. Brake

overview is depicted in fig 2 to classify the acting forces based their sources and behavior.

Fig 2: Forces acting from different components. A. Vehicle body The fundamental law of motion along with the geometric relationships, longitudinal velocity Vx, lateral velocity Vy and yaw rate Yr of the vehicle can be measured [5]. Vehicle body model includes the modeling of vertical load or normal forces on the rear Fzr and front Fzf of the vehicle body. In order to avoid complexity of modeling a large system like vehicle full body, the model is divided into five sub-models or sub-systems, they are: 1. Velocity in X axis 2. Velocity in Y axis 3. Yaw rate 4. Vertical load in the front 5. Vertical load at the rear After creating the SIMULINK model of sub-models from their mathematical model, they are encapsulated as a subsystem of the vehicle body model. Then the equations of motions for this vehicle body are:

Fig 1: Vehicle modeling schematic for ESC. To simulate ESC, in the first step mathematical model is described and then SIMULINK (MATLAB tool) is used to define computer models. Vehicle consists of many components; some of these components take part in dynamic behavior of the vehicle. Forces acting on the vehicle from tire, gravity, aerodynamics and engine determine the dynamic behavior of the vehicle. In this case electric motor used as driving force. These wheels also have resistive force working on them is known as rolling resistance. There are some other resistive forces imposed on vehicle like grading force and air drag force. The components related to vehicle motion, an

1 d V x = V y Yr + dt m (F xfl + F xfr ) cos ( ) (F yfl + F yfr ) ......( 1) 2 sin ( ) + F xrl + F xrr A D V x d 1 V y = V x Y r + dt m (F xfl + F xfr ) sin ( ) + (F yfl + F yfr ) ......( 2 ) cos ( ) + F yrl + F yrr

(Fxfl + Fxfr ) sin ( ) d 1 a ......( 3) ( ) ( ) + F + F cos Yr = yfl yfr dt j b (Fyrl + Fyrr )

(a) Fig 3: Forces acting on the vehicle

The vertical load acting on the front axle Fzf =

F zf

mgb cos F aero h aero 1 d = h CoG m V x (a + b ) dt mgh CoG sin

While climbing up of a slope with angle

.....( 4 )

Then the vertical load acting on the rear axle Fzr =

mga cos + Faero haero 1 d .......(5) Fzr = + mh V (a + b ) CoG dt x + mgh sin CoG
In SIMULINK every force elements from mathematical model will be time-varying, they can be said as timevarying functions. Considering the (1) in a time-varying equation can be written as:

(b) Fig 4 (a) Sub-system and (b) encapsulated block for calculating longitudinal velocity Vx Sub-system for calculating lateral velocity Vy , Yaw rate Yr , vertical load front of the vehicle Fzf and vertical load at the rear of the vehicle Fzr are modeled using the mathematical model and encapsulated. Fig 5.Shows the entire vehicle body block for simulation.

1 d V x (t ) = V y (t ) Y r ( t ) + dt m (F xfl (t ) + F xfr (t ) ) cos ( (t ) ) (F yfl (t ) + F yfr (t ) ) sin ( (t ) ) .....( 6 ) 2 + F xrl (t ) + F xrr (t ) A D V x (t )

Using SIMULINK blocks a sub-system considering (6) can be made as shown in the following fig 4. Using advanced features of SIMULINK sub-model of the vehicle body is encapsulated as a block with required input out for reducing the complexity.

Figure 5: Full Vehicle body model.

B. Tire modelling Vehicle dynamics are mostly influenced by the forces and moments acting on tire or wheel. Simulation of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) for 4 in-wheel electric vehicle, require details of the involved forces acting on the wheel. Considering ESC, a wheel model is presented here that can reproduce the exact behavior of forces as much as possible. Several tire models are discussed in different literature where slip ratio and slip angle are not considered for a larger value and also lack of combined longitudinal and lateral tire force. To meet the purpose of simulating ESC, Dugoffs [6] tire model has been chosen.

Fig 7: shows torque actuator and motion sensor of SIMULINK tool Including all the components and subsystems using the equations stated above tire models is given below. Fig 8 shows the front and rear tire full model with the encapsulated block

Fig 6. Tire with the forces and their axis. Tire model has been developed here considering effective tire radius, slip ratio, road friction coefficient, cornering tire stiffness and longitudinal tire stiffness. According to Dugoff, force in X axis is Fx and force in Y axis is Fy

Fig 8: shows encapsulated block of front tire full model Road friction coefficient Due to this adhesive capability vehicle moves forward when there is any tractive effort on the wheel. The maximum tractive effort that can be supported by the tire-ground contact patch is the product of vehicle load and coefficient of road adhesion or tire-road frictional coefficient denoted as . For further increase in tractive effort will cause sliding of the wheel. In this wheel model different values of this coefficient will be used as constant input for different simulation. Table 1 shows the different frictional coefficient for different road. Surface Peak Values, p 0.80.9 0.8 0.50.7 0.6 0.68 0.55 0.2 0.1 Sliding Values, s 0.75 0.7 0.450.6 0.55 0.65 0.40.5 0.15 0.07

Fx = C

f ( )........( 7 ) 1+ tan ( ) Fy = C f ( )........( 8 ) 1+

Where,

Fz (1 + )
2 (C ) + (C tan ( ))
2

1 2 2

If <1 then f () = (2- ) If 1 then f () = 1 Tire model also required in simulating ESC, rotation and torque of the wheel. Using SIMULINK tools for sensing motion and actuating torque, tools used for are given below in fig 7.

Asphalt and concrete (dry) Concrete (wet) Asphalt (wet) Grave Earth road (dry) Earth road (wet) Snow (hard packed) Ice

Table 1: Shows average values of tire-road friction.

C. Vehicle motion on plane The concept of body block in SIMULINK gives the feasibility to find the position of a body after the applied forces fed in to it. Fig 9 shows the arrangement to relate the vehicle body on the world plane. It is an advanced feature from this software tool to simulate the motion of the vehicle on a plane. The plane can be the world and the relation between them can be defined easily by configuring the blocks.

Fig 9. Connection with world plane Other useful blocks for sensing body motion and actuating joints are also shown in fig 10.

Vehicle Body Parameters Value Height at air drag force acts=Haero 0.5 Height at CG=HatCG 0.49 gravitational force=g 9.8 yaw moment of inertia=Iz 1808 mass of the vehicle=mass 1480 Aerodynamic drag coefficient =Cd 0.32 Mass density of air = ro 1.22 Frontal area of the vehicle = Af 2 Wind velocity =vWind 24 Rolling resistance coefficient=f 0.013 wheel Base=Lw 0.90 Table 2: Parameter for vehicle body block Tire Effective Tire Radius=r_eff2 Tire-Road Friction Coefficient=miu Longitudinal Stiffness of Tire=c_sigma2 Cornering Stiffness of Tire=c_alpha2 Longitudinal Distance form C.G to Front Tires=Lf Rotational Moment of Inertia of Wheel=Jw Table 3: Parameter for tire block

0.28 0.8 20,000 80,000 1.22 1.85

Fig. 10 shows the body sensor and actuators for vehicle. D. Controller for ESC In this model desired-yaw rate and desired side-slip angle is calculated for ESC using (9) and (10).

In simulation, some basic output like speed and yaw rate and radius of this vehicle model is observed, these output are shown in fig 11.

These desired values are calculated in the control block using the parameters of vehicle block and tire block. III. SIMULATION (a)

Simulation of the entire system requires all the blocks arranged as described in the model schematics. To simulate this model, some realistic data have been used in the vehicle body block and in the tire block. Table 2 shows the required data for vehicle body block and table 3 shows the required data for tire block.

IV.

CONCLUSION

(b) Fig. 11: (a) Vehicle speed (b) radius Simulation of vehicle motion with the controller and without the controller is done here. For the both cases the path followed by the vehicle is given in the fig 12. Simulation shows the vehicle is controlled from understeering and following the drivers steering input.

Effort has been given for modeling and simulating the entire vehicle using one software tool to avoid constrains faced in several steps for simulating electronic stability control for an in-wheel electric vehicle. Proposed model gives the flexibility to simulate ESC at the initial stage of development to observe the vehicle dynamics according to the given parameters for vehicle components. Simulation results show a similar dynamic behavior of a car having similar properties used here. In further works, hardware in loop test bench is going to be designed which will include braking and torque generating on individual wheel. As modeling of these vehicle components have developed considering to reduce dependency on other software tools foe vehicle description, it is expected to have a prompted response in the hardware. REFERENCES
[1] M.M. Al Emran Hasan, M.Ektesabi , and A.Kapoor, Pollution Control and Sustainable Urban Transport System - Electric Vehicle ,

World Academy of Science, Engineering Technology, no. 78 (2011 ), pp. 970-975.

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and

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Shengqin Li, Le He, Co-simulation Study of Vehicle ESP System Based on ADAMS and MATLAB Journal of Software, Vol 6, No 5 (2011), 866-872, May 2011 Tejas Kinjawadekar. Model-based Design of an Electronic Stability Control System for Passenger Cars Using CarSim and MatlabSimulink. PhD thesis, Ohio State University, Ohio State University, 2009. C. M. Farmer, "Effects of electronic stability control: An update," Traffic Injury Prevention, Taylor and Francis Ltd, London, vol. 7, pp. 319-324, 2006. Rajamani, R. Vehicle Dynamics and Control, Dordrecht: SpringerVerlag New York Inc, 2006. Dugoff, H., Fancher, P.S. and Segal, L., "Tyre Performance Charecteristics Affecting Vehicle Response to Steering and Braking Control Inputs," Final Report, Contract CST-460, Office of Vehicle Systems Research, US National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC,USA,1969.

(a)

(b) Fig. 12: Vehicle motion (a) without controller (b) with controller