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Vehicle System Dynamics: International Journal of

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Wheel Slip Control in Traction Control System for

Vehicle Stability
Jong Hyeon Park & Chan Young Kim
Version of record first published: 09 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Jong Hyeon Park & Chan Young Kim (1999): Wheel Slip Control in Traction Control System for Vehicle
Stability, Vehicle System Dynamics: International Journal of Vehicle Mechanics and Mobility, 31:4, 263-278

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 Vehicle System Dynamics, 31 Ž1999., pp. 263–278 0042-3114r99r3104-263$15.00
q Swets & Zeitlinger

Wheel Slip Control in Traction Control System for

Vehicle Stability

1 )
JONG HYEON PARK and CHAN YOUNG KIM
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SUMMARY

Traction control systems are used to prevent wheel slippage and to maximize traction forces. This
paper proposes a new scheme to enhance vehicle lateral stability with a traction control system during
cornering and lane changes. This scheme controls wheel slip during cornering by varying the slip ratio
as a function of the slip angle. It assumes that a traction control system with the engine throttle angle is
used. The scheme is dynamically simulated with a model of front-wheel-driven passenger vehicles.
Simulation results show that the proposed scheme is robust and superior to a conventional one, which
is based upon fixed slip ratios, during cornering and lane changes.

NOMENCLATURE
Fx tire longitudinal force
Fy tire lateral force
Ts axle torque
Vx longitudinal velocity
Vy lateral velocity
a slip angle
d steering wheel angle
g yaw rate
l slip ratio
v wheel rotational velocity
f roll angle
c yaw angle
ḟ roll rate

1. INTRODUCTION
When a vehicle is accelerated on a slippery road, the resulting wheel slip reduces
the traction force and increases the instability of the vehicle. Traction control
1
Correspondence author: Associate Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang Univer-
sity, Seoul, 133-791, Korea. Tel: q822-2290-0435; Fax: q822-2298-4634; E-mail:
jongpark@email.hanyang.ac.kr
)
Kim is with Daewoo Motor Co., Korea.
 264 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM

system ŽTCS. is used to maximize the longitudinal friction coefficient by main-

taining an appropriate slip ratio. The slip ratio is defined as Ž R v y V .rR v , where
v is the wheel speed and V is the vehicle velocity. Generally, TCS consists of
one, or a combination of throttle valve intervention, injection cut out, brake
intervention, and limited slip differential control. For many possibilities, a quick
throttle valve intervention is enough for the TCS of front-wheel-driven passenger
vehicles w1x. Many different types of TCSs are developed by Toyota, GM, BMW,
Bosch, and etc. w2–5x.
While more longitudinal traction force is desired during driving straight, more
lateral force is desired during cornering in order to be able to turn without lateral
slippage, and thus to increase the vehicle stability. Typical characteristics of tires
show that the longitudinal friction coefficient decreases and the location where the
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coefficient peaks shifts to the higher slip ratio region as the slip angle increases.
They also show that the lateral friction coefficient, the peak value of which occurs
when the slip ratio is 0, increases as the slip angle increases. Thus, it is desirable
to have a lower value of the slip ratio during cornering than during driving
straight. If the slip ratio is too low, however, a significant portion of the traction
force will be lost, which is not desirable, either. Therefore, there should be an
optimal way to balance the longitudinal and the lateral forces ŽFig. 1..
This paper proposes a new wheel slip control method to optimize the longitudinal
traction force and the lateral force. In the scheme, the target slip ratio is given as a

Fig. 1. Longitudinal and lateral tire forces as functions of the slip angle and the slip ratio.
 WHEEL SLIP CONTROL IN TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM 265

Fig. 2. System block diagram.

function of the wheel slip angle which is estimated with measurements of the
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vehicle velocity, the yaw rate, and the steering angle. The control scheme is
simulated for a front-wheel-driven vehicle. Section 2 describes the models of the
drive train and the vehicle used in the simulations. In Section 3, the proposed
control algorithm will be explained, followed by simulations in Section 4. Finally,
conclusions will be drawn in Section 5.

2. DRIVE TRAIN AND VEHICLE MODELS

The drive train consists of an engine, an automatic transmission, and a differential,

as shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. The engine is modeled as a torque source that is a
function of the throttle angle and the engine speed. A pure time delay due to the
lag time in the inlet system w6x, the size of which depends upon the engine speed,
is included. The turbine torque of the torque converter is modeled as a function of
torque capacity factor and the torque ratio, which depend upon the speed ratio, in
the torque converting range and the hydrodynamic coupling range. The automatic
transmission is modeled as simple gains and its efficiency is also considered.
Neglected are the inertia of the planetary gears and the shift pattern that is a
function of the axle speed and the throttle angle.

Fig. 3. Vehicle drive train w6x.

 266 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM

Table 1. Vehicle parameters.

Vehicle parameters value unit
lf distance from c.g. to front axle 1.290 m
lr distance from c.g. to rear axle 1.524 m
M vehicle total mass 1600 kg
ms vehicle sprung mass 1460 kg
h height of c.g. above ground 0.52 m
e distance from roll center to sprung mass c.g. 0.39 m
Iz z vehicle yaw inertia 2400 kgm2
Ix x vehicle roll inertia 460 kgm2
Iw h e e l inertia of each wheel 1.4 kg
tf front track width 0.761 m
tr rear track width 0.755 m
R wheel radius 0.31 m
K ff front roll stiffness 38.40 kNmrrad
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K rf rear roll stiffness 31.42 kNmrrad

C ff front roll damping coeff. 1756 Nsrrad
Crf rear roll damping coeff. 1756 Nsrrad

The vehicle model has 8 degrees of freedom: rotations of 4 wheels, yawing,

rolling, and longitudinal and lateral motions. Pitching motions and vertical mo-
tions of the unsprung mass are neglected. For the tires, a nonlinear Pacejka model,
developed with the curve-fitting of actual tire data, is used in order to increase the
accuracy of the simulations w7x. The detailed numerical values of the parameters
used in the simulations are shown in Table 1, and the equations of vehicle
dynamics are shown in Appendix.

3. TRACTION CONTROL ALGORITHM

3.1. Slip Ratio as a Function of Slip Angle

As the slip angle increases, the slip ratio at which the longitudinal force has its
maximum value increases as in Fig. 4. In order to have the maximum longitudinal
force, therefore, the slip ratio should be increased as the slip angle increases.

Fig. 4. Relations of longitudinal and lateral force coefficient with the slip angle.
 WHEEL SLIP CONTROL IN TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM 267

Fig. 5. Varying target slip ratio.

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However, this would result in a small lateral force and reduce the cornering
capability, causing the vehicle instability. It is proposed, therefore, that the target
slip ratio should be rather reduced in order to increase the lateral force, as curve
Ža. in Fig. 5, when the slip angle is large. This method is called variable slip-ratio
control Ždenoted by VSRC., contrary to conventional fixed slip-ratio control
Ždenoted by FSRC..
The weight on the lateral force relative to the longitudinal force for curve Ža. in
Fig. 5 is determined to be close to the weights when the vehicle turns with 4–5
ŽFig. 6..

3.2. Control Law

A P-I controller is used to compute the control throttle angle based on the
measurement of the vehicle speed and the target vehicle speed.

Kp
uc o n t r o l s u i n p u t q K p Ž Vt a r g et y Vw h e e l . q
T
HŽ V
t a r g e t y Vw h e el . dt , Ž 1.

Fig. 6. Ratio of the lateral to the longitudinal force on high-m roads and target slip value.
 268 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM

where

1
Vt a r g et s Vx , Ž 2.
1 y l)

uc o n t r o l is the target throttle angle, u i n p u t is the driver’s input of the throttle angle,
Vw h e el is equal to R v and l) is the target slip ratio.
The final target throttle angle output of the controller is the minimum value of
the target throttle angle and the command throttle angle by the driver:

u t a r g et s min Ž u i n p u t , uc o n t r o l . . Ž 3.
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This is to eliminate the possibility that the throttle angle opens more than the
driver commands. The overall control system is shown in Fig. 7.
The slip angle can be estimated with lateral velocity, steering angle, and the
yaw rate w8x.

a 1 s d 1 y tany1
ž Vy q l f g
Vx q t f g / Ž 4.
a 2 s d 2 y tan y1
ž Vy q l f g
Vx y t f g / ,

where a 1 and a 2 are left and right slip angles; d 1 and d 2 are left and right
steering angles; Vx and Vy are longitudinal and lateral velocities; and l f and l r are
distances from the center of gravity to the front and real axles; t f and t r are front
and rear track widths; and g is yaw rate. Lateral velocity can be obtained by
integrating measured lateral acceleration w9, 10x and yaw rate can be obtained with
yaw rate sensors.

Fig. 7. Control block diagram.

 WHEEL SLIP CONTROL IN TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM 269

4. SIMULATION
4.1. Cornering on Slippery Road
The performance of the varying slip ratio control on the slippery road is compared
with that of the fixed slip ratio control on the slippery road as well as the
performance when driving on the dry road.
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Fig. 8. Turning on the slippery road.

 270 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM
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Fig. 9. Graphic simulation of different slip ratio control schemes.

In the first test, the driver increases the steering angle ŽFig. 8Ža.. as he
accelerates fully the vehicle which was moving straight at 20 kmrh. After 2
seconds, the road becomes very slippery. The simulation results, shown in Fig.
8Žb., shows that the yaw rate drops suddenly when the road becomes slippery and
that it recovers the yaw rate. It can be observed that the yaw rate of the VSRC
vehicle is larger than that of the other. As far as the turning radius is concerned,
the VSRC vehicle moves closely to the vehicle on the dry surface while the FSRC
vehicle experiences the increasing turning radius. The VSRC loses some of the
traction force at the cost of gaining the lateral force and travels about 4 m short of
the FSRC Ž94.37 m vs. 90.41 m. vehicle for 10 seconds. Fig. 9 shows 3-dimen-
sionally that the vehicle without any control actually slides and fails to turn and
that the VSRC vehicle turns more closely to the vehicle on the dry surface than the
FSRC vehicle.
In the second test, we compare the VSRC vehicle with the FSRC for accelerat-
ing on an identical circular road. Fig. 10Ža. indicates that the VSRC vehicle
requires smaller steering angles for identical lateral accelerations than the FSRC
vehicle. Fig. 10Žb. shows that the VSRC vehicle exhibits smaller yaw rates.

4.2. Lane Change

In this test, the vehicle with an initial velocity of 40 kmrh is accelerated during a
lane change on the snow-covered road. Fig. 11 Ža. shows the steering angle input
 WHEEL SLIP CONTROL IN TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM 271
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Fig. 10. Performance comparison during turning on the circular path: VSRC requires smaller steer
angles Ža.; and smaller yaw rates Žb..

by the driver. The vehicle without control shows the smallest yaw rate and the
VSRC vehicle shows the highest yaw rate during the lane change motion. Fig. 11
 272 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM
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Fig. 11. Lane change characteristics depending upon the slip ratio control schemes.

Žc. shows the target slip ratio used in the slip ratio control. Fig. 12 shows how the
vehicle actually moves when different control or no control is used. It shows that
the VSRC vehicle performs better than the FSRC vehicle and the vehicle without
any control.
 WHEEL SLIP CONTROL IN TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM 273
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Fig. 12. Graphic simulation of lane changes.

4.3. Robustness

Even though performance of the control law is assured based upon the nominal
plant model, performance of the actual implemented system is influenced by
modeling errors and sensor dynamics. In this Section, 2 different simulations are
done for the performance robustness.
In the first simulation, random errors are added to the right-hand side of Eq. Ž4.
to simulate the measurement noise of lateral velocity. The result is that no

Fig. 13. Different tire characteristics.

 274 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM
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Fig. 14. Yaw rates while the vehicle with tire characteristics Žcurve Ža. in Fig. 13. turns on the slippery
road.

noticeable changes are observed in the system performance even when the range
of the random noise is "10% of the nominal slip angles computed by Eq. Ž4..
In the second simulation, effects of tire modeling errors are considered. Due to
nonlinearity of tire characteristics, any theoretical analysis on the effect of
modeling error is formidable. So we evaluated the control system performance

Fig. 15. Yaw rates while the vehicle with tire characteristics Žcurve Že. in Fig. 13. turns on the slippery
road.
 WHEEL SLIP CONTROL IN TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM 275

with tire characteristics that are more or less different from the nominal ones. Fig.
13 shows different tire characteristics used for the simulation. Curve Žc. is the
nominal tire characteristics. Fig. 14 and Fig. 15 show yaw rates for curve Ža. and
curve Že., respectively, in Fig. 13 while the vehicle turns on a slippery road under
the conditions explained in Section 4.2. It is apparent that the system performance
is strongly dependent upon the tire characteristics and that the nominal controller
works well. This simulation shows that VSRC has larger yaw rates and thus
consistently performs better than FSRC regardless of some modeling errors of tire
characteristics.

5. CONCLUSION
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Wheel slip ratio control based upon the slip angle estimation is proposed in order
to distribute the lateral and longitudinal forces. During cornering, the lateral force
has a more significant role. The controller distributes tracking forces and lateral
forces appropriately so that the system exhibits improvements in performance
during cornering on the dry surface. Simulation results show that the proposed
control scheme is superior to a controller with a fixed slip ratio in cornering, and
robust to tire characteristics and lateral velocity measurement noise.

APPENDIX A. VEHICLE DYNAMICS

A.1. Plane Motion (Fig. 16)

Longitudinal, lateral, and yaw motions are described by

Longitudinal Direction: ÝFx s M ž V˙x y Vyg / , Ž A1.

Lateral Direction: ÝFy s M ž V˙y y Vx g / , Ž A2.

Yaw Direction: ÝM z s Iz z g˙ , Ž A3.

where

ÝFx , ÝFy : resultant forces in each direction

ÝM z : and sum of the moment about z - axis.

 276 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM
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Fig. 16. Plane motion of the vehicle.

A.2. Roll Motion (Fig. 17)

The related dynamics is:

ÝM x s yK f f y K f˙ f˙ q m s gesin f
Ž A4.
ž /
s I x x f¨ q m s e V˙y q Vx c ,

where K f is the roll stiffness, K f˙ is the roll damping, and e is the distance from
the roll center to the sprung mass center.

Fig. 17. Roll motion of the vehicle.

 WHEEL SLIP CONTROL IN TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM 277

Fig. 18. Forces applied at the wheel.

A.3. Wheel Dynamics (Fig. 18)

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Dynamics related to a wheel is:

Iw h e el v˙ s Ts y RFx y Tr o l l y Tb r , Ž A5.
where Iw h e el is the wheel inertia, R is the wheel radius, Tr o l l is the rolling
resistance torque, and Tb r is the braking torque.

A.4. Tire Model

Longitudinal total force Fx and lateral total force Fy can be represented as

functions of longitudinal force for pure tracking Fx o and lateral force for pure
cornering Fy o :
sx
Fx s Fx o ,
s
sy Ž A6.
Fy s Fy o ,
s
where
Fx o s Dx sin Ž C x tany1 Ž B x f x . . , Ž A7.
Fy o s Dy sin Ž C y tany1 Ž B y f y . . , Ž A8.
where f x and f y are functions of slip ratio l and normal tire load Fz , and

(
s s sx2 q sy2 , Ž A9.
where
l
sx s y , Ž A10.
1ql
tan a
sy s y , Ž A11.
1ql
 278 J.H. PARK AND C.Y. KIM

and
sx
Fx s Fx o , Ž A12.
s
sy
Fy s Fy o . Ž A13.
s

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