Research Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2018, Vol. 10(8) 1–12
Ó The Author(s) 2018
Development of a new traction control DOI: 10.1177/1687814018792152
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
system using ant colony optimization

Liqiang Jin1, Mingze Ling2 and Jianhua Li2

Abstract
An advanced traction control system can help limit wheel rotation and enhance vehicle stability. This article presents a
new traction control system under complicated situations, including the low slippery road surface and split-m road sur-
face. First, a 15-degree-of-freedom nonlinear vehicle dynamics simulation model is established. Then, the driving wheel
speed is regulated by adjusting the engine torque and the wheel brake pressure. The engine torque regulation is based
on a proportional–integral–derivative plus ant colony optimization controller, and the wheel brake pressure regulation is
based on a proportional–integral plus ant colony optimization controller. Finally, the proposed strategies are applied to
simulation and road tests. Results indicate that the algorithm exhibits high control accuracy and robust performance.
Compared with the traditional proportional–integral–derivative controller, the proposed strategies improve vehicle
acceleration performance and stability.

Keywords
Vehicle engineering, ant colony optimization, traction control system, parameter optimization, automotive control

Date received: 8 April 2018; accepted: 10 July 2018

Handling Editor: Yangmin Li

Introduction application. Considering the problem on the intrinsic

Excessive rotation of the driving wheel occurs when the
vehicle starts and accelerates particularly on a slippery
road, on the hillside, or at turns. In this case, the incor-
rect reaction of the driver will lead to instability of the
vehicle. Traction control system (TCS) can solve these
problems and keep the vehicle in the physical range.1
Many theoretical studies have been conducted on
TCS worldwide. According to the adhesion coefficient
of pavement, logical threshold control can easily reach
the anti-skid control calibration target range; however,
a large number of matching tests are needed to obtain
the corresponding threshold value, and the develop-
ment cycle is longer. The structure of a proportional–
integral–derivative (PID) control is clear; as such, the
calculation speed is fast, allowing real-time control.
Therefore, TCS is widely used in the control field.2
Song and Byun3 introduced the throttle actuator system
of a time-delay PID controller with variable reference
model, which exhibits good performance in practical
property of PID, Yin et al.4 proposed a fuzzy controller
that effectively prevents driving wheel slipping and
reduces the slip rate compared with conventional PID
controls. All these methods focus on controlling engine
torque. However, a single controller cannot maintain
vehicle stability under complicated road conditions. As
such, an active brake pressure controller should be
combined with an engine torque controller.5 Kang
et al.6 proposed a coordinated cascade method for con-
trolling engine torque and active brake pressure; the
controller is designed using variable structure control
1
College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control, Jilin
University, Changchun, China
Corresponding author:
Jianhua Li, State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control,
Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China.
Email: ljh_lotus@jlu.edu.cn

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2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

theory in sliding-mode. L Li et al.7 proposed a fuzzy improve a TCS using ACO. The proposed control
controller to solve the problem of coordination between approach was tested with low m slippery road surface
engine torque and active braking and verified it on and split-m road surface simulations in the simulation
uneven low-friction road conditions. and real vehicle test, which proves the effectiveness
TCS can meet the complex working conditions under of the method. Compared with the traditional TCS
active braking and engine-coordinated control.8 PID algorithm, the ACO-optimized TCS improves the
controllers have been widely used because of their sim- acceleration performance and reduces the number of
ple structure, convenient realization and stable and reli- adjustments.
able operation. It is very important how to show those The rest of this article is structured as follows. The
PID control systems clearly.9 The parameters of tradi- vehicle dynamic model is provided in section ‘‘Vehicle
tional PID controllers are optimized by manual meth- model.’’ The practical problem of the conventional
ods10 and are unsuitable for all situations. When a algorithm is discussed in section ‘‘Conventional TCS.’’
vehicle is in a complex environment, it will cause accel- Section ‘‘Controller design’’ describes the controller
eration difficulties and affect vehicle stability. design, which includes an engine controller and an
Optimization problems can make up for this short- active brake controller. In section ‘‘Improved ACO
coming, which can be found in many industries and in algorithm’’ the parameter optimization strategy for the
the scientific community. In contrast to classical mathe- PID controller using the ACO algorithm is described.
matical concepts, bionics algorithms (e.g. ant colony, In section ‘‘Result and discussion,’’ the results of simu-
genetic, and particle swarm algorithms) have been lation and real-car validation are shown in detail.
developed through simulation of natural ecological sys- Discussion and further research topics are also pre-
tems to solve complex optimization problems. These sented. Finally, section ‘‘Conclusion’’ summarizes the
algorithms greatly enrich the current optimization tech- article.
niques and provide practical solutions for combinator-
ial optimization problems that are difficult to deal
using traditional optimization techniques. Ant colony Vehicle model
optimization (ACO) is suitable for solving complex Body model
computing problems especially in optimizing PID para-
A nonlinear 15-degree-of-freedom (DOF) vehicle model
meters based on insect behavior under different envir-
is used to predict vehicle response under different road
onments.11,12 Ant algorithm has attracted increasing
conditions during various driving maneuvers, as shown
research attention since it was established and has been
in Figure 1.
successfully applied in traveling salesman problem
TCS controls the vehicle’s longitude dynamics but
(TSP),13,14 vehicle routing problem,15,16 and mobile ad
ignores several factors. In this article, the vehicle model
hoc networks.17,18 Several parameter optimization
includes longitude motion, lateral motion, vertical
methods have been proposed for ACO.19–22 Duan
motion, roll motion, pitching motion, and yaw motion.
et al.19 introduced an ACO algorithmic approach for
The vehicle dynamic equations can be described as
optimizing the parameters of a nonlinear PID control-
ler and proved that it has good control and robust per- follows
formance. Furthermore, ACO has been applied in X
dynamic systems. The system based on the adaptive ant m(u_ + vy w  vz y) = Fxsij + mg sin u ð1Þ
colony (AAC) design also successfully optimizes the
dynamic model from preprocessing flight data.23,24 In
this study, ACO is used to design TCS. Given that
ACO can be easily combined with other local algo-
rithms, it can make up for the dynamic response that
PID cannot obtain and thus improve the stability and
acceleration of the vehicle.
This article proposed a combined solution to the
vehicle traction control problem. The wheel speed regu-
lation realized with engine torque control and active
braking control. A PID control system has been
designed for engine torque regulation and a
proportional–integral (PI) controller has been
employed for wheel brake pressure regulation. For
both control system, the controller gains have been
tuned by using a metaheuristic optimization method
named ACO. The significance of this article is to Figure 1. 15-DOF vehicle model.
Jin et al. 3

X
m(v_ + vz u  vx w) = Fysij  mg sin u cos u ð2Þ Conventional TCS
X During the driver’s full-throttle acceleration, the driving
m(w_ + vx v  vy u) = (Fzsij + Fzdij )  mg cos u cos u
wheel torque exceeds the maximum tire adhesion force
ð3Þ between the tire and the pavement. The traditional TCS
X c algorithm is often faced with two problems. On the one
Jx v_ x = (Txij ) + (Fzsfl + Fzsrl  Fzsfr  Fzsrr ) ð4Þ hand, the brake control responds quickly, but the tor-
2
X que of the engine cannot be reduced immediately
Jy v_ y = (Tyij ) + b(Fzsrr + Fzsrl )  a(Fzsfl + Fzsfr ) because of the relatively low dynamic response of the
ð5Þ engine. On the other hand, controlling the torque and
X braking torque simultaneously is difficult. Therefore,
Jz v_ z = (Tzij ) + a(Fysfl + Fysfr )  b  (Fysrr + Fysrl ) the reduction of engine torque and the generation of
c wheel brake torque require optimization using high-
+ (  Fxsfl + Fxsfr  Fxsrl + Fxsrr ) precision control algorithms to reduce the rotation of
2
the wheel.
ð6Þ
ACO exhibits a great advantage in solving optimiza-
Wheel rotational equations can be expressed as tion problems. On the one hand, the ant algorithm is a
positive feedback and used as a search and optimization
dv tool in engineering because of its effectiveness in finding
Jw = Tq  Fd rv  Tb ð7Þ
dt very good solutions to difficult problems. On the other
hand, ACO is a heuristic algorithm of population and
has strong robustness and optimization ability. The ant
Tire model colony algorithm is a bionics algorithm based on ant
The tire model selected is the magic formula model pro- colony and has the advantages of good robustness.
posed by Professor Pacejka.25 This model is a mathe- This work applies ACO to optimize the conventional
matical expression based on the tire physical prototype, PID controller, which has the advantages of simple
which is used to accurately calculate the tire forces in structure, good robustness and, high reliability.
the longitudinal and lateral directions.6 The equation
of the tire longitudinal forces y can be defined as Controller design
y = D  sinfC  arctan½ B  l  E  (B  l  arctan(B  l))g Control scheme
ð8Þ The overall structure of the TCS is shown in Figure 2.
Given the lack of transverse differential lock control-
The slip ratio of tire can be expressed as follows ler’s braking application, the driving force can be trans-
mitted on both sides when the driving torque on both
v  rv  u
l= 3 100% ð9Þ sides of the differential is equal.1 The larger driving tor-
v  rv
que causes the slipping of the low-side wheel, resulting
in velocity difference higher than 0. In this case, most
of the drive torque will be lost in the differential speed,
Engine model
the engine, and the transmission. The wheel speed dif-
An engine is a complicated system. Many factors affect ference in the driving wheel is 0, which is considered as
the engine torque output, but the most important are the desired value of TCS. The system monitors each
the throttle opening uth and crankshaft speed ne . wheel and adjusts the brake pressure and engine tor-
During vehicle motion, a lag exists between throttle que, thereby optimizing the stability and acceleration
input and torque output; as such, the time lag problem characteristics of the vehicle.
should be considered. Therefore, the first-order inertial In general, vehicle acceleration presents difficulties
environment is used to establish the engine model. In under typical road conditions, namely, low m pavement
this article, the dynamics model of the engine can be and the split-m pavement. Vehicle longitudinal velocity
depicted as is important for electronic stability control system; in
the meantime, vehicle longitudinal velocity is estimated
este1 based on wheel speed signals. When the vehicle enters
Te = Ts 
te2  s + 1 ð10Þ the acceleration fault, the accuracy of speed estimation
Ts = f (uth , ne ) will be directly affected, which leads to a larger error in
slip calculation. This article proposes a control scheme
The engine output torque depends on throttle angle to solve the problem by maintaining the traction wheel
and rotation speed. speed.
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 2. The structure of TCS.

The driving wheel may slip under the slippery surface

condition. The engine torque regulation is based on a
PID plus ACO controller to adjusting driving wheel
speed, and the active brake regulation is based on a PI
plus ACO controller to adjusting the wheel brake pres-
sure. Static friction coefficients differ under split-m road
condition. The engine torque controller and active
braking controllers work together to avoid excess spin-
ning of the wheel. First, the active brake controller
based on the wheel speed signal is judged on one side of
the driving wheel skid, providing proper strength of the
wheel through active braking. The adjustment on the
other side of the driving wheel improves the rate of
adhesion and enhances the ability to pass through the
wheel. In the second step, the engine output torque is Figure 3. Target of the slip design.
chosen to reduce the output torque.

driving torque at low speed, lo should be a relatively

Engine output torque controller
The output of the torque controller of the engine is the
optimal driving torque, which reduces the throttle
opening of the engine to limit the torque of the driving
wheel, so the driving wheel will not over slide.
The target wheel speed of the driving wheel can be
calculated according to the optimum slip ratio, which
can be expressed as vo rv = u=(1  lo ). lo should be
approximately 0.05–0.3. To avoid unstable output of
large value when vehicle speed is low. With the increase
of vehicle speed, lo gradually decreases, as shown in
Figure 3, which is determined by vehicle test.
When the wheel speed of the driving wheel is greater
than that of the non-driving wheel, the speed difference
between the wheels on both sides of the driving wheel is
very small, which indicates that the driving wheel is
skidding. At this moment, the engine torque control
takes the leading role, in which the average value of the
Jin et al. 5

wheel speed of the two-driving wheel is expressed as Assuming M is the number of ants, and M ants are
wd rw = (wl rw + wr rw )=2, control deviation is expressed randomly distributed on these nodes. In a discrete
as e(t) = vd rv (t)  vo rv (t). Engine target torque is the space, ant movement is the transition from one state to
output torque of the engine to achieve the target wheel another. Pheromones will be stored on the route. The
speed. The PID control is expressed as strength of the pheromone accumulation of edge (i, j) is
denoted by t(i, j).
ðt   Equations (15) and (16) indicate the state transition
de(t)
Ttar (t) = Kp e(t) + Ki e(t)dt + Kd ð11Þ rules, which are used to represent a real ant K located
dt
0 at node i and select the next node j. Equation (15) is a
greedy choice of technology and is the optimal combi-
nation of short distance and large pheromone level;
Active brake controller equation (16) balances this problem by allowing the
probability of the next node to be selected
The active brake pressurization rate is high, and the lag
(   
time is short. The wheel responds very quickly to pres- arg max t(i, u) Dh(i, u)b if q  q0
sure interference, which easily causes large fluctuation s= u2hk (i)
in wheel speed. 0 otherwise
When the traction controller detects that one or ð15Þ
more driving wheels rotate faster than the other wheels, 8 b
it calls active brake controller to apply brake friction to < Pt(i, j)½Dh(i, j) if s 2 hk (i)
t(i, u)½Dh(i, u)b
restrain wheel skid and reduce traction force. Braking pk (r, s) =
: u2hk (r)

on the skid-wheel will transfer driving torque to the 0 otherwise

other side of the wheel through the differential mechan-
ical behavior. e is the wheel speed difference among the
driving wheels and is expressed as e = wl rw  wr rw .
Given that the wheel speed signal of the actual vehi-
cle controller contains noise, derivative element easily
causes repeated fluctuation of the control quantity and
is not conducive to the stability of the braking regula-
tion; thus, PI control mode is presented as follow
ðt
ps (t) = Kp e(t) + Ki e(t)dt ð12Þ
0
Improved ACO algorithm
A group of control parameters cannot adapt all envi-
ronment conditions. The ant algorithm is a positive
feedback and is used as a search and optimization tool.
Hence, a method for ACO identification is proposed to
obtain optimally designing parameters of TCS. The
PID parameters are optimized in this study by using
the parameter optimization strategy proposed by Duan
et al.19 Let the objective function be
ðt
h= e2 (t)dt ð13Þ
0 0
ð16Þ
The larger the q0 is, the less the probability of using
the rule of equation (15) is. If q  q0 , then the optimal
edge is selected by using accumulated knowledge; if
q.q0 , then the new edge is chosen by transition, which
is biased toward short and high trail edges. b is a constant
and defines the relative importance of the heuristic com-
ponent. hk (i) is the set of all the nodes visited by ant K.
All ants perform the pheromone global update after
each construction step. In addition, we use an elitist
strategy to accelerate the search speed. At the end of
each cycle, additional pheromone enhancements are
added to all of the already found optimal solutions to
make the optimal solution found to be attractive to ants
in the next cycle. We can obtain the following formula
t(i, j) = (1  g)  t(i, j) + g  Dt(i, j) ð17Þ
Dt(i, j) is following function
Xm
ð18Þ
Dt(i, j) = Dtk (i, j)
k =1
in which
8 Q
>
> if kth ant use edge(i, j)
< Dh (i, j)
k
Dt k (i, j) =
> (i, j) belongs to globally best tour
>
:
otherwise

which is also named a cost function. ð19Þ

In solving PID problems, let d(i, j) = Dh(i, j), and Dt(i, j) is used to enhance the pheromone at the edge
Dh(i, j) is defined as of the globe’s optimal solution, and Dhk (i, j) is value of
the objective function and is computed according to
Dh(i, j) = hi  hj 8i, j ð14Þ equation (13).
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 4. The flowchart of ACO.
This process continues until a certain number of
iterations or solutions have been implemented. Based
on the above concepts, the process of solving nonlinear
PID with improved algorithm is shown in Figure 4.
The two controller optimization methods are the
same; therefore, the parameter optimization of PI con-
trol will not be discussed here.
Result and discussion
Simulation result
MATLAB/Simulink is used, and simulations are car-
ried out under some typical conditions to validate the
performance of the proposed algorithm. The vehicle
model parameters are shown in Table 1. In the simula-
tion, the acceleration pedal is 100% without steering
Table 1. Values of the vehicle parameters.
Parameter Value
Sprung mass 1482 kg
Gravity 9.81 m/s2
The distance between the 1.4 m
front-axle and the center of gravity
The distance between the 1.25 m
rear-axle and center of gravity
The wheel base 2.92 m
Wheel radius 0.3 m
Height of center gravity 0.52 m
Inertia moment 2300 kg m2
Wheel inertia moment 1 kg m2
angle input. The characteristics of the vehicles with the
TCS, without TCS and traditional TCS are analyzed
and compared. The following indices are used: FL rep-
resents the front-left wheel, FR represents the front-
right wheel, RL represents the rear-left wheel, and RR
represents the rear-right wheel.
Table 1 lists the other parameters of the vehicle
model for simulation.
Low m slippery road surface. As shown in Figure 5(a), the
friction coefficient of the road surface is 0.2; when the
controllers do not operate, the four wheels are severely
skidding on the slippery road. When the driving force
on the wheel is faster than the maximum adhesion force
provided by the road, the wheel turns to slip and cause
traction loss. As shown in Figure 5(b), the use of tradi-
tional PID control method makes up for the difficulty
of vehicle acceleration on low attached pavement.
Although this method exhibits better acceleration per-
formance and restricts the wheel skidding to a certain
extent, the speed of the four wheels is greater than the
vehicle speed; hence, the wheels are always sliding, and
the driving force is consumed at the differential speed.
As shown in Figure 5(c), at 0.445 s, the TCS based on
ACO optimization starts to control the transition of
the wheels. Under the joint adjustment of the engine
output torque controller and the active brake control-
ler, the wheels are effectively restrained and the vehicle
speed increases gradually. The proposed algorithm is
better than that without TCS and traditional TCS.
From Figure 5(b) and (c), the comparison between the
traditional control and the optimal control shows that
the speed of the vehicle with traditional control is 19 m/
s at 7 s, whereas the speed of the optimal control is
19 m/s at 6 s. Therefore, the acceleration is better than
in the vehicle without TCS intervention. Compared
with the traditional PID algorithm, the proposed TCS
controller exhibits the same acceleration effect, but the
method can reduce the adjustment times by about 55%
Jin et al.
Figure 5. Velocity versus time in the low m slippery road
surface: (a) velocity versus time with no control, (b) velocity
versus time under traditional control, and (c) velocity versus
time under control.
under slippery road conditions and further improve the
dynamic and steady-state performance of the system.
The motor torque adjustment is shown in
Figure 6(a). Before 0.445 s, the actual output torque of
the engine increased rapidly to 135 Nm according to
the driver’s intention. At 0.445 s, the excessive rotation
of the wheel is detected by the controller. From 0.445
to 1 s, the torque is rapidly reduced to 60 Nm, and the
acceleration performance of the vehicle is improved
gradually. At 5.95 s, the actual engine torque is greater
7
Figure 6. Simulation results in the low m slippery road surface:
(a) torque versus time under control and (b) cylinder pressure
versus time under control.
than the driver’s torque, the engine output torque con-
troller exits, and the vehicle accelerates according to
the driver’s intention. The optimization parameters of
torque regulation are obtained by simulation
Kp = 100; Ki = 7:5; Kd = 1:5.
The active braking adjustment is shown in
Figure 6(b). The main object of the braking adjustment
is the relatively fast speed of the driving wheel. As
shown in Figure 5(c), the left rear wheel is faster than
the right rear wheel at about 1 s; at this moment, the
braking of the left rear wheel is close to 3.5 bars. From
1.5 to 6 s, the right front and left front wheels alter-
nately brake. At 6.5 s, as the speed difference of the
driving wheel tends to 0, the active brake controller
exits. The optimization parameters of braking adjust-
ment are obtained by simulation: Kp = 20; Ki = 16.
Split-m road surface. As shown in Figure 7(a), the vehicle
without TCS is difficult to drive on the split-m road
surface, where the left side is rough road (m = 0.8) and
the right side is slippery road (m = 0.2). The right wheel
is on the low side and will greatly slide without the
TCS controller. As shown in Figure 7(b), the use of
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 7. Velocity versus time in the split-m road surface: (a) velocity versus time with no control, (b) velocity versus time under
traditional control, and (c) velocity versus time under control.
traditional TCS improves the acceleration performance
of the vehicle compared with the system without TCS.
However, the low-side wheels are still skidding, result-
ing in waste of energy from 3 to 8.5 s. This long-time
adjustment may cause damage to the controller in real
vehicle test and cannot meet the control accuracy
requirements. The simulation results show that the
coefficients of adhesion are 0.8 for the left road and 0.2
for the right road in Figure 7(c). At 0.445 s, the TCS
based on ACO optimization inhibits the transitional
slip of low-side wheels. The engine torque no longer
increases as the accelerator pedal opening increases.
Under the action of active braking, the TCS can effec-
tively restrain the slip of the slippery side wheel and
improve the speed by utilizing rough side wheel. From
Figure 7(b) and (c), the comparison between the tradi-
tional control and the optimal control shows that the
speed of the vehicle with traditional is 19 m/s at 8 s,
whereas the speed of the optimal control is 19 m/s at
5.3 s. Therefore, the proposed method is better than the
previous two methods on the split-m road surface. The
acceleration in the method with TCS is 80% higher
than that without TCS and 50% higher than that in the
traditional PID control method.
The engine torque adjustment is shown in
Figure 8(a). At the beginning, the engine output torque
increases with increasing throttle opening. During skid-
ding of the side wheels, the engine output torque does
not adjust to the low torque, as in low-profile pave-
ments, but is maintained at 120 N m, thereby ensuring
the acceleration of the vehicle. The optimization para-
meters of torque regulation are obtained by simulation:
Kp = 75; Ki = 2; Kd = 0:8.
The active braking adjustment is shown in
Figure 8(b). To improve the acceleration of the vehicle
on the road surface, active pressure interference is only
carried out for low-side driving wheels. In this process,
the low-side drive wheel is subjected to the active inter-
ference pressure, and the maximum interference pres-
sure reaches 12 bars. The optimization parameters of
braking adjustment are obtained by simulation:
Kp = 25; Ki = 1:8.
Road test result
An experimental study was carried out in the test field
of Heihe City of North China to verify the performance
of TCS on winter road condition. The simulation and
Jin et al. 9

Figure 8. Simulation results in the split-m road surface: (a) torque versus time under control and (b) cylinder pressure versus time
under control.

experimental results were applied to the experimental

Figure 9. The real test vehicles on the packed snow ground.
vehicle (front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout), as
shown in Figure 9. The vehicle was refitted to facilitate
vehicle testing and incorporated with four pressure sen-
sors and TCS controller. The controller installed in the
engine room was integrated on the hydraulic unit
(HCU). Relevant data were recorded using Vector
CANalyzer from CAN bus.
Under the coordination of active braking pressure
and engine torque regulation, the wheel speed is obvi-
ously smooth on the low-friction road (m = 0.2) and
the split friction road. The high adhesion of the sepa-
rated pavement is the concrete surface, which has a fric-
tion factor of about 0.8. The low-adhesion side is an ice
surface with a friction factor of about 0.2.
As shown in Figure 10, before 1.5 s, the engine has a
large output torque, which makes the drive wheel slide.

Figure 10. Velocity versus time in the low m slippery road surface: (a) wheel speed and vehicle velocity and (b) the winter test
results obtained on the snow road.
10
Figure 11. The winter test results obtained on split-m road surface: (a) wheel speed and vehicle velocity and (b) torque.
The target torque may be large in the short time after
the intervention. With the sliding of the wheel, the con-
troller can quickly reduce the engine output torque and
maintain a certain driving force. The pressure curve is
not drawn because the braking pressure is 0 during con-
trol process. The torque oscillation of the front wheel
has obvious smooth characteristics. The optimized
parameters obtained are Kp = 125; Ki = 2; Kd = 0:5.
As shown in Figure 11, the vehicle starts from the
stationary state on the separation road. After the slip-
ping of the low-side wheel, TCS is activated, and engine
management system and hydraulic brake modulator are
controlled. The controller can exert braking force on
the wheel in time so that wheel speed can be restored.
The brake pressure was intervened several times with
the transition of the wheel, and the maximum value is
15 bars. TCS improves the driving force of the low-side
wheel and effectively prevents the wheel from overturn-
ing from 1 to 10 s, as shown in Figure 11(b). The engine
control exits frequently, which can affect ride comfort.
The optimization parameters of torque regulation are
obtained by simulation: Kp = 80; Ki = 5; Kd = 0:7.
The optimization parameters of braking adjustment are
obtained by simulation, Kp = 30; Ki = 2:7.
Discussion
In contrast to other automotive engineering strategies,
the new bionic strategy exhibits good adaptability to
terrain. This strategy can not only meet the general
operational requirements but also improve the dynamic
performance through TCS under severe conditions.
The control objectives of TCS are mainly divided
into slip rate and speed types. The phenomenon of vehi-
cle speed is corrected based on slip rate control.4–6,26–29
In this study, we design the control target of TCS based
on speed control. As shown in equation (9), slip rate is
calculated based on wheel and vehicle speeds. When the
Advances in Mechanical Engineering
driving wheel is over sliding, the slip rate cannot be cal-
culated. Therefore, slip rate should not be calculated
based on TCS control. The choice of target wheel speed
can not only be used to observe wheel speed but also to
reflect slip rate. Based on this perspective, the advan-
tage of this work compared with previous research is
that the acceleration performance of vehicles is better,
and the traction loss is smaller on low and separate
roads. For example, in the real vehicle test of ice and
snow road, the driving wheel only skips once, which
effectively reduces the transition consumption of driv-
ing force.
The proposed strategy also uses ACO to optimize
the PI parameters of the torque controller in TCS.30
Given that the pressure controller is not considered, the
single engine torque controller is difficult to meet the
requirements of TCS split-m road surface. Therefore, in
the simulation test of the split-m road surface, the vehi-
cle speed was approximately 5.81 m/s at 5 s with ant
colony PI controller, while it was approximately 19 m/s
at 5.3 s with the ACO-optimized TCS controller.
In the study of the slip ratio as control target, the
PID controller combined with the optimal longitudinal
slip rate identification,31 and the vehicle speed was
approximately 14 m/s at 4.5 s under low-adhesion road,
while it was approximately 19 m/s at 6 s with the ACO-
optimized TCS controller. The proposed method is
faster than the other methods. Hence, the control strat-
egy is excellent, and the optimization results are signifi-
cant. The ant algorithm is also applicable and
reasonable for study of vehicle stability.
Conclusion
This article introduces a new TCS based on ACO for
engine torque and pressure controllers. The integrated
strategy is more complex than the traditional PID con-
trol. The ACO is used to optimize the PID/PI
Jin et al.
parameter strategy for TCS. The strategy is tested on
uniform adhesion and split-m based on MATLAB/
Simulink. The results show that TCS prevents excessive
slip and improves the acceleration performance of vehi-
cles. The method is also verified by real vehicle tests.
The acceleration performance of the vehicle is signifi-
cantly improved. In contrast to the conventional TCS
algorithm, the TCS based on ACO optimization
improves the acceleration performance and prevents
excessive slip under complicated road surface condi-
tions. Compared with the traditional method, the pro-
posed method can also reduce the number of
adjustments by about 55% under slippery road condi-
tions and increase the acceleration speed by 50% on
the split-m road surface.
Therefore, the proposed method may provide new
opportunities for novel TCS algorithms. The proposed
contributions here were verified through simulations
and real vehicle tests. This work offers reference value
for further research of TCS.
The current research on ACO has been conducted
considering that the original single TSP has penetrated
into various applications. One-dimensional (1D) static
optimization problem is solved to address multidimen-
sional dynamic combinatorial optimization problems.
The discrete domain range gradually extends to
research with continuous scope. Thus, the new bionic
optimization algorithms show great vitality and broad
prospects for development.
In future works, we will focus on the following
aspects:
1. More complex working conditions, such as
slope on the road, will be tested to verify the
proposed method.8
2. ACO will be applied to other automobile stabi-
lity control systems and compared with other
mainstream methods to improve the control
effect.
3. The proposed algorithm will be applied to other
types of cars, such as pure electric vehicles and
vehicles equipped with in-wheel motors.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Jianhua Li https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2589-1172
11
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Appendix 1 Dhk (i, j) value of objective function
Dtk (i, j) quantity of pheromone in an ant
Notation hk (i) set of all the nodes
u body pitch angle
a distance between the front-axle and the uth throttle opening
center of gravity l slip ratio of tire
b distance between the rear-axle and center u body roll angle
of gravity v wheel speed
c distance between the front and rear axles vx roll rates
m sprung mass vy pitch rates
ne crankshaft speed vz yaw rates