Traction/Braking Force Distribution for Optimal Longitudinal Motion During Curve Following

SUMMARY

The optimal tire force distribution to maximize acceleration/deceleration of a four-wheel vehicle during cornering is studied. The objective of this research is to investigate the improvement one can expect from the implementation of different vehicle steering and driving mechanisms. We first identify the upper limit imposed by physical laws by assuming all the four wheels can be individually steered and driven. Practical vehicle configurations such as four-wheel-steering (4WS) and four-wheel-drive (4WD) are then considered. The optimization involves equality and inequality constraints and are solved by nonlinear programming techniques.