As an emerging research focus, corner module-by-wire chassis vehicles overcome
the limitations of traditional chassis in flexibility, cost, and development
efficiency, serving as a key infrastructure in the autonomous driving era.
However, their numerous actuators raise significant actuator failure risks. This
paper analyzes the characteristics of such vehicles and studies fault-tolerant
control for drive system failures. Firstly, a vehicle model for the corner
module-by-wire chassis was established based on CarSim and Simulink. Then, a
hierarchical lateral stability control strategy was designed for the non-faulty
actuators: the decision control layer employed sliding mode control (SMC) and
fuzzy PID control, selecting the optimal method to output additional yaw
moments; the control allocation layer distributed the upper-level target yaw
moments based on the vertical load of the tires, converting them into individual
wheel torques to meet the constraints. For the drive system, potential fault
scenarios were analyzed and their fault modes were classified. By using the
non-faulty actuators for torque reconstruction, fault-tolerant strategies were
designed for single-motor, diagonal dual-motor, and coaxial dual-motor faults. A
co-simulation platform was built using MATLAB/Simulink and CarSim, testing the
stability control strategies under three fault modes in constant-speed
straight-line and double-lane change conditions. Simulation results show that
the designed drive system fault-tolerant control strategy effectively maintains
the vehicle’s expected dynamic performance and stability.