Assisted Steering Control for Distributed Drive Electric Vehicles Based on Combination of Driving and Braking

This paper presents a low-speed assisted steering control approach for distributed drive electric vehicles. When the vehicle is driven at low speed, the braking of the inner-rear wheel is combined with differential drive to reduce the turning radius. A hierarchical control structure has been designed to achieve comprehensive control. The upper-level controller tracks the expected yaw rate and vehicle side-slip angle through a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) algorithm. The desired yaw rate and vehicle side-slip angle are obtained according to the reference vehicle model, which can be regulated by the driver through the accelerator pedal. The lower-level controller uses a quadratic programming algorithm to distribute the yaw moment and driving moment to each wheel, aiming to minimize tire load rate variance. Simulation and real vehicle tests compare three steering modes: front-wheel steering only, front-wheel steering + differential drive assisted steering, and front-wheel steering + differential drive combined with differential braking assisted steering. The results show that the proposed coordinated control of drive and braking reduces the vehicle’s turning radius by 20% compared to just front-wheel steering, which is beneficial for improving the handling of distributed drive vehicles.