A Model Predictive Control Method for Vehicle Drifting Motions with Measurable Errors

Abstract

Vehicle drifting control has attracted wide attention, and the study methods are divided into expert-based and theory-based. In this paper, the vehicle drifting control was based on the vehicle drifting state characteristics. The vehicle drifting state parameters were obtained by the theory-based vehicle drifting motion mechanism analysis based on a nonlinear vehicle dynamics model, which was used to express the vehicle characteristics, together with the UniTire model, by considering the vehicle longitudinal, lateral, roll, and yaw motions. A vehicle drifting controller was designed by the model predictive control (MPC) theory and a linear dynamics model with the linearized expressions of nonlinear tire forces based on the consideration of measurable errors. The control targets were the vehicle drifting state parameters obtained by calculation, and the controller performance was proved by simulation in MATLAB/Simulink, demonstrating that the controller is good to realize vehicle drifting motions. The same target drifting motions were realized at different original states, which proved that the vehicle drifting control is possible with the designed controller.