Second Order Sliding Mode for traction control in ride-by-wire sport motorcycles

The paper addresses the analysis and design of a safety-oriented traction control system for ride-by-wire sport motorcycles via second order sliding mode (SOSM) techniques. The controller design is based on a nonlinear dynamical model of the rear wheel slip, and the modeling phase is validated against experimental data measured on an instrumented vehicle. To comply with practical applicability constraints, the position of the electronic throttle body is used as control variable and the effect of the actuator dynamics thoroughly analyzed. After a discussion on the interplay between the controller parameters and the tracking performance, the final design effectiveness is assessed via MSC BikeSimreg, a full-fledged commercial multibody motorcycle model.