Development of integrated brakes and engine traction control system

Traction control system (TCS) helps regulating wheel slip when vehicle starts from rest or accelerates excessively. It limits the slip either by applying braking torque or suppressing the engine torque or by using both techniques. The brakes has faster response than the engine; however, overusing brakes decrease its lifetime and increase the fuel consumed. In this paper, a TCS is proposed that utilizes both the brakes and the engine to control the wheel slip. Fuzzy and PID control strategies are used to control the brakes and engine respectively. When slip exceeds a certain threshold, the brakes TCS is activated, after a couple seconds the control is switched smoothly to the engine TCS and then the Brakes TCS is deactivated. The controller design was verified through simulations on the Simulink environment. The results show that the controller is able to maintain slip ratio at the desired value with smooth transition during switching controllers in addition to its capability of coping with sudden change in road conditions.