2017 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Control Science and Systems Engineering

Research and Test on Traction Control System of Distributed Driving Electric

Vehicles

Ye Yifan, Zhao Jian, Zhao Yang, Wu Jian

College of Automotive Engineering
Jilin University
Changchun, China
e-mail: yeyf16@mails.jlu.edu.cn; wujian@jlu.edu.cn

Abstract—The Traction Control System is the foundation to and the ground will appear relatively slip phenomenon,
maintain the vehicle tractive performance and stability. In which is described by the slip rate.
view of the characteristics of distributed driving electric
vehicle, a traction control method is designed to control the rww  uw
wheel slip rate by adjusting the motor torque directly. And
through reasonable correction to the target wheel speed, a
balance of acceleration and stability of automobile can be
reached. The results of simulation and real vehicle test show
that the control algorithm can achieve the control target of
restricting four wheel slip of the vehicle on the uniform, split
and opposite adhesion road.
Keywords-traction control system; wheel slip; motor torque
adjustment
I. INTRODUCTION
Traction Control System (TCS) is an active safety control
system that prevents the skidding of wheels during driving to
achieve optimal vehicle dynamics while maintaining vehicle
stability [1]. Excessive wheel slip may lead to a significant
reduction of adhesion force which in turn deteriorates control
performance and impairs motion stability [2]. In the case of
conventional vehicles, TCS takes the friction brakes and
driveline as the actuators to reduce driving force to keep the
slip rate of the wheels within the desired range [3].
Compared with the traditional vehicle, the distributed driven
electric vehicles (DDEV) employ multiple motor driven
systems, with the advantage of quick and precise torque
response of motor [4]. The target of TCS can be achieve by
directly regulating the motor toque without brake disc
friction and wear and dust emissions. Furthermore, it can
reduce energy consumption during wheel slipping.
Reference to the traction control method of internal
combustion engine and the characteristics of DDEV, this
paper designs a control algorithm to follow the target slip
rate of each wheel by directly adjusting the output torque of
the motor, and verifies the control effect through simulation
and experiment.
II. CONTROL SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
A. Control Objectives of TCS
In the process of acceleration of the vehicle, if the power
system provides the driving force exceeds the maximum
driving force of the ground can supplied, between the tire
978-1-5386-0484-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
s u100% 
rww
where r is the wheel rolling radius, uw is the wheel center
speed, ww is the wheel angular velocity.
As correlational researches shown, the longitudinal and
lateral adhesion coefficient and tire slip rate are shown in Fig.
1 [5]. With the tire slip ratio increases, the longitudinal
adhesion coefficient increased first and then decreased, the
lateral friction coefficient gradually decreased. In order to
take both of the longitudinal and lateral stability of the
vehicle into account, the slip ratio of the tire should be
controlled in the best slip rate interval in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. The μ−λ curve for the analysis.
Taking into account the different vehicle characteristics
at different speeds, TCS control should meet the following
requirements:
1. Low speed, such as snow and ice on the road slippery,
the vehicle should be a greater acceleration to ensure drive
performance;
2. High speed, should strictly control the vehicle slip, so
that the lateral adhesion coefficient can ensure the stability of
the vehicle;
There are two methods in the control of slip rate, the
target slip ratio and the target wheel speed difference. In
order to meet the above control objectives, this paper uses
the combination of the two control methods as (2) [6].
277
 ­ 1  st ve d 1 ay
° vturn B 
v ®ve 1  st  1  ve d 8.3  vx
°v  8.3s ve ! 8.3
¯ e t
The corrected wheel speed difference between left and
right wheel of the front and rear axles is as follows:
where st is target slip rate, ve is vehicle longitude speed.
When the speed is more than 8.3m/s, the target wheel
speed difference is adopted to strictly control the wheels slip, e flr v fl  v fr  vturn 
when the vehicle speed is less than 8.3m/s and more than
1m/s, taking the target slip ratio control mode to ensure the
driving performance of the vehicle. When the vehicle speed
is less than 1m/s, due to the limitation of the wheel speed  erlr vrl  vrr  vturn 
sensor, the wheel speed signal is distorted, hence the
constant reference speed control method is adopted to keep
In order to meet the requirement of traction control in the
the vehicle driving ability.
first section, the difference between the left and right wheel
B. Control Strategy speed is modified according to the vehicle speed, to reduce
In order to realize the accuracy and real-time of control, differential share at high speed:
this paper adopts the control strategy based on PID control
theory. That is, taking the difference between the reference ­ 1, v  10
wheel speed and the controlled wheel speed as the PID ° 
controller input, the motor torque increment as the output
kd ®(v  10) / (30  10), 10 d v  30
° 0, v t 30
control mode. ¯
To make full use of the front and rear axle road adhesion
coefficient, and improve the vehicle stability, the front and Combined with the above axis and differential control
rear axle control separately, respectively before the shaft two strategy, the four wheel torque in the TCS control process
wheel speed and wheel axle average two average wheel can be obtained:
speed as control wheel speed, the front and rear axle torque
controller inputs such as (3) and (4) shown.

k pf e f  kif ³ e f  k k
v fl  v fr
T fl
2
d pflr e flr 
 kiflr ³ e flr 
ef  vref 
2

k pf e f  kif ³ e f  k k
vrl  vrr
T fl
2
d pflr e flr 
 kiflr ³ e flr 
 er  vref 
2
The above control method is applicable to the TCS under 
k pr er  kir ³ er  k k
uniform adhesion road. But for the split adhesion road, the
driving force on the side with high adhesion coefficient is
Trl
2
d prlr e rlr 
 kirlr ³ erlr 

insufficient, thus the wheel speeds are reduced. While the

driving force on the low adhesion side is too large, and wheel
speeds increase, making both two sides wheels cannot be in 
k pr er  kir ³ er  k k
the best slip rate range, and cannot fully use the ground
adhesion coefficient. Considering the wheel speed difference
Trl
2
d prlr erlr 
resulted from it between two sides’ wheels, the differential
control is introduced in this paper. On the one hand, the
stability of the vehicle is improved. On the other hand, the
vehicle driving performance is improved by fully using the
road surface adhesion.
At the same time, considering the wheel speed difference
between the left and right wheels of the vehicle driving in the
corners. In order to ensure the steering ability of the vehicle,
and avoid the false trigger of differential control. According
to Ackerman steering geometry, the correction coefficient
vturn is introduced:
278
 kirlr ³ erlr 
C. Control Logic
The best slip rate of common road surface is shown in
Table I [7]. It can be seen that the optimal slip rate under
different road conditions is different, but all of them are
between 0.08 and 0.25. Therefore, this paper uses the control
logic based on the slip threshold. and identifies the first cycle
of TCS control, through different control parameters to meet
the rapid suppression of wheel slip, and reduce the control
overshootˈSo that the control can stabilize more quickly.
 TABLE I. OPTIMAL SLIP RATIO OF TYPICAL PAVEMENT parameters. When vwheel is less than vlow, the time is more
Pavement type Optimal slip ratio
than ts, usually 50ms, exit TCS control, and continue to
monitor the wheel speed to prepare for the next control.
Dry asphalt 0.17
Wet asphalt 0.16 III. SIMULATION ANALYSIS
Tighten the snow 0.12 Based on the above control algorithm and Logical
Icy road 0.09 switching method, the control model was established and
verified in the vehicle dynamics simulation software
DYNA4. The TCS simulation was respectively done on
different road surfaces, such as the Uniform low μ, μ Split,
Low μ to High μ and High μ to Low μ road. Fig. 4 shows the
comparison simulation results of situ acceleration test on the
low adhesion road when applied and without control.

Figure 2. TCS control threshold diagram.

Fig. 2 is the diagram of control threshold based the

optimal slip rate range. According to the up and down
threshold of slip rate, the reference wheel speed upper bound
vhigh and lower bound vlow were obtained respectively. In
accordance with the relationship between the front or rear
axle average wheel speed and the two, the control algorithm
defines the TCS entry and exit criteria and identifies the first
control cycle.
Figure 4. The result of TCS simulation on uniform low μ road.
Start

It can be seen from Fig 1, without the use of TCS control,

If vwheel > vhigh
1 all of the four wheels have significant slipped, while under
the TCS control, TCS can accurate access control according
< to the wheel slip rate, effectively identify the first cycle
TCS enble (Cycle 1) control process of front and rear axle, timely impose
restrictions on the slipped wheels. As a consequence, the
wheel speed can gradually converge to the reference speed,
If vwheel < vlow 1 so as to ensure vehicle acceleration performance. The data
(First time) show that the acceleration time of 0~10 m/s is shortened
from 5.19s to 4.94s. At the same time, the driving energy
<
consumption during the acceleration process can be reduced
TCS enble ( After Cycle 1)
by the direct use of the motor torque control.
IV. EXPERMENT VALISATION
If vwheel < vlow 1
And t > ts

<
TCS disble

Figure 3. TCS control logic block diagram.

The system control flow is shown in Fig. 3. In the normal CAN bus
driving course of the vehicle, the TCS controller real-time ax,ay ax,ay vwheel vwheel vwheel
monitors the wheel speed. When the wheel speed vwheel is vx,vy vx,vy Mmotor Mmotor Mmotor
greater than vhigh, the control enters the first cycle of TCS VCU Wheel
control, then, when the wheel speed vwheel is less than v_low RT3000 MCU
˄MicroBoxĊ˅ and Motor
for the first time, exits the first cycle, the control enters the
subsequent control, and adopts the following control Figure 5. Test vehicle and hardware architecture.

279
 On the basis of simulation analysis, this paper builds a
real vehicle verification platform, and carries on the road test
in several common working conditions. As shown in Fig. 5,
through the RT3000 and wheel speed sensors, motors’,
vehicle’s speed, wheel speed and other vehicle operating
parameters can be collected. Then, taking the MicroBox as
the prototype controller to make decisions according to TCS
control algorithm and timely adjusts the motor torque
through the MCU (motor control unit) to meet TCS control
requirements.
Figure 6. Uniform Low-μ road.
Figure 7. Spilt μ road.
Figure 8. Low-μ to high-μ transition.
Fig. 6-Fig. 9 respectively shows the experimental result
of TCS Test on the Uniform low μ, μ Split, Low μ to High μ
and High μ to Low μ road surface. On the Uniform low μ
and μ Split road surface. It can be seen that the algorithm can
280
be quickly involved, restrict wheel slip in time from the
comparison between the wheel speed and the vehicle speed
map. In addition, as shown in the torque diagram, the control
can make full use of the High adhesion coefficient side to
acceleration on μ Split road. In the experiment on Low μ to
High μ and High μ to Low μ transition road surface, the
control logic of the algorithm can accurately enter and exit
the TCS control when the pavement adhesion coefficient
changes abruptly. In general, the proposed algorithm can
improve the vehicle acceleration performance on the premise
of ensuring vehicle stability.
Figure 9. High-μ to low-μ transition.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the TCS control algorithm based on directly
adjusting the output torque of the motor is designed for the
characteristics of distributed driving electric vehicle. The
results of simulation analysis and real vehicle test show that
the algorithm can effectively control the wheels slip under
the typical conditions, such as Uniform low μ , μ Split and μ
transition road surface, so as to maintain the vehicle drive
ability and stability.
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