Modeling and simulation of electronic differential system for an electric vehicle with two-motor-wheel drive

Abstract

In-wheel-motor drive electric vehicle (EV) is an innovative configuration, in which each wheel is driven individually by an electric motor. It is possible to use an electronic differential (ED) instead of the heavy mechanical differential because of the fast response time of the motor. A new ED control approach for a two-in-wheel-motor drive EV is devised based on the fuzzy logic control method. The fuzzy logic method employs to estimate the slip rate of each wheel considering the complex and nonlinear of the system. Then, the ED system distributes torque and power to each motor according to requirements. The effectiveness and validation of the proposed control method are evaluated in the Matlab/Simulink environment. Simulation results show that the new ED control system can keep the slip rate within the optimized range, ensuring the stability of the vehicle either in a straight or a curve lane.