Development of control oriented vehicle models and their application to adaptive control allocation problems

Emerging vehicle control systems have increased the need for valid vehicle models. In this study, two controller oriented vehicle models are developed and linearized for easier controller design. These models are validated by using an advanced vehicle simulation commercial suite. Then by using these models, an adaptive, fault-tolerant control allocation method which simultaneously commands all traction and steering related actuators is developed. The proposed control scheme consists of a high level controller that creates a virtual control input vector and a low level control allocator that distributes the virtual control effort among redundant actuators. Virtual control input consists of desired forces and moments to ensure stability while following a given reference. Based on this virtual control input vector, the allocation module determines actuator inputs. Performance of the proposed system is evaluated via an object avoidance maneuver in various scenarios such as different velocities and effectiveness loss at actuators. Results show that the proposed approach can follow the references despite the loss of actuator effectiveness in the driving cycle.