Closed-loop Controller for Post-Impact Vehicle Dynamics Using Individual Wheel Braking and Front Axle Steering

Paper in proceeding, 2012

This paper presents a vehicle path controller for reducing the maximum lateral deviation (Ymax) after an initial impact in a traffic accident. In previous research, a quasilinear optimal controller (QLOC) was proposed and applied to a simple vehicle model with individually controlled brake actuators. QLOC uses nonlinear optimal control theory to provide a semiexplicit approximation for optimal post impact path control, and in principle can be applied to an arbitrary number of actuators. The current work extends and further validates the control method by analyzing the effects of adding an active front axle steering actuator, as well as increasing the fidelity of the vehicle model. As expected, performance with respect to Ymax can be improved by the additional actuator, though the extent of the improvement is found to depend on the post-impact kinematic states. The applicability of QLOC is confirmed by comparison with new results from open-loop numerical optimization.