Real-Time Individual Tire Force Estimation for an All-Wheel Drive Vehicle

Abstract

Due to demands for active control systems that can enhance driving performance, active-type all-wheel drive (AWD) systems have drawn interest recently. Equipped with an electronically actuated motor to control a wet clutch in a transfer case, the active-type AWD facilitates the variable distribution of torque from the main driveshaft to the subdriveshaft. The conventional approaches to the estimation of tire force, developed to implement chassis control, have only focused on the two-wheel drive vehicle dynamics model. In this paper, an individual tire force estimation algorithm that is particularly designed for AWD vehicles is proposed. Using the interacting multiple model filter method, the suggested algorithm can help avoid the chattering response caused by immediately switching between vehicle dynamic models. Data obtained from the controller area network of production vehicles were used for the real-time application of the proposed estimator to chassis control. Then, the proposed estimator was validated using an AWD vehicle in various driving scenarios.