Aug. 17, 2018

The new journal article, “A novel active rollover preventer for ground vehicles based on continuous roll motion detection”, gets published in the ASME ASME Transactions Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control recently. (See Publications)

Abstract: To enhance the performance of vehicle rollover detection and prevention, this paper proposes a novel control strategy integrating the mass-center-position (MCP) metric and the active rollover preventer (ARPer) system. The applied MCP metric can provide completed rollover information without saturation in the case of tire lift-off. Based on the continuous roll motion detection provided by the MCP metric, the proposed ARPer system can generate corrective control efforts independent to tire–road interactions. Moreover, the capability of the ARPer system is investigated for the given vehicle physical spatial constraints. A hierarchical control architecture is also designed for tracking desired accelerations derived from the MCP metric and allocating control efforts to the ARPer system and the active front steering (AFS) control. Cosimulations between CarSim and MATLAB/Simulink with a fishhook maneuver are conducted to verify the control performance. The results show that the vehicle with the assistance of the ARPer system can successfully achieve better performance of vehicle rollover prevention, compared with an uncontrolled vehicle and an AFS-controlled vehicle.

May 14, 2018

An autonomous driving test of an electric vehicle driven by four in-wheel motors is launched by the Dynamic Systems and Control Laboratory (DSCL), on the Polytechnic campus of Arizona State University (ASU). Please see the video for reference.

Feb. 24, 2018

The new journal article, “Dynamics and control of a novel active yaw stabilizer to enhance vehicle lateral motion stability”, gets published in the Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control recently. (See Publications)

Abstract: In this paper, a novel active yaw stabilizer (AYS) system is proposed for improving vehicle lateral stability control. The introduced AYS, inspired by the recent in-wheel motor technology, has two degrees of freedom with independent self-rotating and orbiting movements. The dynamic model of the AYS is first developed. The capability of the AYS is then investigated to show its maximum generation of corrective lateral forces and yaw moments, given a limited vehicle space. Utilizing the high-level Lyapunov based control design and the low-level control allocation design, a hierarchical control architecture is established to integrate the AYS control with active front steering (AFS) and direct yaw moment control (DYC). To demonstrate the advantages of the AYS, generating corrective lateral force and yaw moment without relying on tire-road interaction, double lane change maneuvers are studied on road with various tire-road friction coefficients. Co-simulation results, integrating CarSim® and MATLAB/Simulink®, successfully demonstrate that the vehicle with the assistance of the AYS system has better lateral dynamics stabilizing performance, compared with cases in which only AFS or DYC is applied.

Oct. 30, 2017

The new journal article, “Intelligent optimal control for the crawler vehicle with semi-active suspension using modified staged continuous tabu search algorithm”, gets published in the Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control recently. (See Publications)

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel intelligent optimal control strategy for crawler vehicles with semi-active suspension. The proposed control strategy aims at improving vehicle ride comfort by addressing contradictory suspension properties requirements of ride comfort and handling stability simultaneously. After establishing seven degrees of freedom dynamic model of the crawler vehicle, a comprehensive evaluation index is developed to trade off among various vehicle performances, which include ride comfort, damper thermal reliability, elastic element fatigue and handling stability. Then, using modified staged continuous tabu search (MSCTS) algorithm, the optimal control efforts of semi-active suspension, damping ratios, are determined by minimizing the cost function defined by the comprehensive evaluation index. Demonstrated by simulations with triangle convex block and random ground roughness excitations, MSCTS control strategy can successfully improve ride comfort performance and achieve the optimal comprehensive performance as well.

Aug. 15, 2016

Fengchen Wang joins in the Dynamic Systems and Control Laboratory, Arizona State University, as a Ph.D. student with the supervision of Prof. Yan Chen.

Dec. 25, 2017

Fengchen Wang has launched his own personal research homepage on Christmas Day, 2017!