Traction force distribution on omni-directional four wheel independent drive electric vehicle

This paper proposes an optimal traction force distribution for omni-directional four wheel independent steering (4WIS) and four wheel independent drive (4WID) vehicle. The proposed force distribution algorithm is aimed to enhance the vehicle stability with minimum cost. The algorithm avoids the use of any feedback information of vehicle motion such as linear velocity as this information is difficult to measure accurately and the price of the measuring equipment is very high. As a result, the implementation cost can be reduced and at the same time avoid improper force distribution due to the inaccurate measured information. Moreover, the proposed algorithm does not involve any parameter tuning. It makes the algorithm easy to implement. The proposed algorithm can also be applied to any steering types of 4WID vehicle such as typical two wheel steering (2WS) as 4WIS is the general case of any steering configuration. Simulation results reveal that the performance of the proposed force distribution is superior to the uniform force distribution which is commonly used in 4WID vehicle.