ACTIVE FRONT STEERING DURING BRAKING PROCESS

An active front steering (AFS) intervention control during braking for vehicle stability is presented. Based on the investigation of AFS mechanism, a simplified model of steering system is established and integrated with vehicle model. Then the AFS control on vehicle handling dynamics during braking is designed. Due to the difficulties associated with the sideslip angle measurement of vehicle, a state observer is designed to provide real time estimation. Thereafter, the controller with the feedback of both sideslip and yaw angle is implemented. To evaluate the system control, the proposed AFS controlled vehicle has been tested in the Hardware-in-the-loop-simulation (HILS) system and compared with that of conventional vehicle. Results show that AFS can improve vehicle lateral stability effectively without reducing the braking performance.