Lyapunov-Based Pitch Control for Electric Vehicles Using In-Wheel Motors

Modern powertrain configurations for electric vehicles introduce the possibility to actuate the wheel directly by means of in-wheel motors. These machines enable stiffer and more efficient traction, with the possibility of introducing pitch motion control due to the intrinsic coupling between longitudinal, vertical, and pitch dynamics. This paper proposes a pitch rate attenuation control exploiting a Lyapunov function that attempts to cancel the pitch rate dynamics from the model. Unlike previous works, this pitch control is performed exclusively with the traction machine; it does not rely on controllable suspension systems. The controller formulation guarantees global stability of the vehicle. Furthermore, it considers the nonlinearity of the plant introduced by the dependency on the pitch angle. To facilitate the feedback of the road profile needed by the Lyapunov controller, two Kalman filters are included in the control law. This work implements the described strategy on a half car model. Simulations examine different speed and road conditions. It is demonstrated that the control strategy can blend longitudinal and pitch rate attenuation torque commands using a rear in-wheel motor, attaining a reduction of up to $41\%$ for chassis pitch rate and $36\%$ for pitch acceleration.