Two distinct methods for integration of active differential and active roll control systems

The development and application of mechatronic sub-systems has dramatically increased in the automobile industry during recent years. The implementation of these sub-systems, aboard vehicles, has resulted in an increase in vehicle performance and stability. However, until recently, these sub-systems have been developed for specific objectives without considering the dynamic coupling between these systems. Hence, their potential has not been fully exploited. In this paper, the coupling effect of the active differential and the active roll control systems on the lateral and the yaw rate dynamics of a vehicle are demonstrated by deriving a simple linearised model. Then, two distinct control strategies are proposed for illustrating the benefits of integrating the aforementioned systems. The first control method is based on direct use of an optimisation method for computing optimal mapping of the requested vehicle body forces to the actuator inputs. The second method utilises a MIMO model based control methodology. The advantages and the drawbacks of each control strategy are discussed and the simulation results are presented.