Lane-keeping benefits of practical rear axle steer

Abstract

The classic two-degree-of-freedom yaw-plane or ‘bicycle’ vehicle model is augmented with two additional states to describe lane-keeping behaviour and further augmented with an additional control input to steer the rear axle. A simple driver model is hypothesised where the driver closes a loop on a projected lateral lane position. The driver can select the preview distance to compensate driver/vehicle dynamics, consistent with the ‘cross-over’ model found in the literature. A rear axle steer control law is found to be a function of the front axle steering input and vehicle speed that exhibits stability similar to a positive-real system, while at the same time improving the ability of the driver/vehicle system to track a complex curved lane and improving steady-state manoeuvrability. The theoretically derived control law bears similarity to practical embodiments allowing a deeper understanding of the functional value of steering a rear axle.

Keywords:

• vehicle dynamics
• man–machine modelling
• rear axle steer
• driver model