Development of a robust vehicle traction control system

Abstract

One third of the fatal crashes worldwide are due to loss of driver control over the vehicle. Losing grip on road due to the conditions of road is one of the common causes of loss of control crashes. Traction control system (TCS) was developed to prevent wheel from slipping when vehicle starts from rest or accelerates sharply while moving on dry roads or low friction roads. It also improves the vehicle mobility on low friction surfaces. The Traction control system prevents wheel slip by regulating either the brak- ing torque or the engine driving torque. Each type has its pros and cons. This research aims to develop Engine TCS and Brakes TCS controllers that maintain the target wheel slip without requiring complicated calcu- lations on di erent roads, compare their simulations results, develop an integrated traction control system that combines the pros of both brakes and engine TCS. In addition, it aimed to provide an experimental proof of concept for the proposed controller. Three types of controllers were developed and assessed with each of the Brakes TCS and the Engine TCS; PID, Fuzzy and Fuzzy PID through simulation runs on front wheel vehicle using the Matlab/Simulink soft- ware. Based on the results, an integrated traction control system has been presented based on switching between brakes fuzzy controller and engine throttle PID controller. Simulations were used to verify the capability of the integrated controller to control the slip with excessive acceleration on uniform roads and sudden change in road conditions during acceler- ating. Moreover, each part of the integrated controller was implemented separately using the Simulink embedded coder target toolbox on a 1/10th scaled nitro powered front drive radio controller car equipped with wheel speed sensors, Arduino Mega microcontroller and data logger.