Directional Vehicle Control by Steering the Third Axle to Provide Redundancy for Steer-by-Wire Systems and Highly Autonomous Vehicles

A way of providing steering redundancy for highly autonomous vehicles or vehicles equipped with steer-by-wire systems by steering the rear axle for directional control of the vehicle has been previously proposed. In this study, we further investigate and improve on that concept and validate it through simulation and experimental testing on a vehicle. Consequently, we show that in the case of failure of primary front axle steering system, the vehicle controller steering command (in the case of autonomous driving) or the driver’s steering command (in the case of a steer-by-wire system) can be mathematically manipulated to generate a steering input at the rear axle, which results in the same yaw rate response as if the vehicle was steered from the front, and thus providing a way to control the vehicle should a failure occur in the primary steering system.