Lateral motion control of skid steering vehicles using full drive-by-wire system

This paper introduces a control system to stabilize the motion of skid steering vehicles, extends their stability limit and makes their handling performance similar to that of the conventional two-wheel steering vehicle. For this purpose, the yaw rate response of the two degree of freedom (2DOF) linear model of the conventional two-wheel steering vehicle is chosen as a model response. The model following control theory is used to introduce the direct yaw moment needed to stabilize and steer the skid steering vehicle. The direct yaw moment has been split into the four tires based on two methods. The first method is based on a simple distribution technique (SD), whereas the second method is based on an independent distribution technique (ID) where the four wheels can be driven individually using a full drive-by-wire system. A comprehensive nonlinear dynamic model of the skid steering vehicle has been simulated using Matlab/Simulink in order to examine the effectiveness of the proposed control system. The results of both open and closed loop tests show that the proposed control system has a significant effect on stabilizing the lateral motion of skid steering vehicles as well as improving their handling characteristics.