An integrated path-following and yaw motion control strategy for autonomous distributed drive electric vehicles with differential steering

This paper proposes a novel control strategy integrated path-following with yaw motion control for autonomous distributed drive electric vehicles with differential steering (DS) technology. First, the path-following and vehicle dynamics model, and DS system are introduced and analyzed. Then, the control framework is proposed, where the model predictive control (MPC) is adopted for path-following and yaw motion control. Given the optimized command by MPC, the quadratic programming (QP) algorithm is applied for in-wheel motors' torque allocation optimization. Series of simulation validations are carried out, proving that the proposed strategy can effectively achieve superior path-following effect, guarantee the vehicle yaw stability, and implement the steering control in DS system, simultaneously.