Nonlinear Steering Wheel Angle Control Using Self-Aligning Torque with Torque and Angle Sensors for Electrical Power...

Area of Science:

• Automotive Engineering
• Control Systems
• Robotics

Background:

• Electric Power Steering (EPS) systems are critical for vehicle safety.
• Steering Wheel Angle (SWA) control is becoming mainstream with advanced sensors.
• Current EPS control methods treat self-aligning torque as a disturbance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel nonlinear control strategy for SWA in EPS systems.
• To leverage self-aligning torque for enhanced lateral control in autonomous vehicles.
• To improve SWA tracking accuracy and reduce control effort.

Main Methods:

• A nonlinear control approach combining a high-gain disturbance observer and a backstepping controller.
• Utilizing a high-gain observer to estimate self-aligning torque.
• Employing an auxiliary state variable to avoid signal differentiation.

Main Results:

• The proposed method effectively estimates self-aligning torque.
• The backstepping controller successfully bounds SWA tracking error.
• Self-aligning torque provides damping, improving controller tracking and reducing control input.

Conclusions:

• The proposed nonlinear control strategy effectively utilizes self-aligning torque for EPS.
• This approach enhances lateral control performance in autonomous vehicles.
• Hardware-in-the-loop simulations validate the method's effectiveness.