Advantages of rear steer in LTI and LPV vehicle stability control

In this paper, the advantages of the rear wheel steer in robust yaw stability control of four wheeled vehicles are shown. A MIMO vehicle dynamic stability controller (VDSC) involving front steer, rear steer and rear braking torques is synthesized. The comparison between a vehicle with and without rear steer is done on avoidance maneuver using both LTI and gain-scheduling LPV controller. Both robust H_∞ controllers are built by the solution of an LMI problem. To better evaluate the influence of the rear steer on the performance time domain indexes are introduced. The simulation results show that active rear steer enhances vehicle handling on a low friction surface.