Electric Differential for an Electric Vehicle with Four Independent Driven Motors and Four Wheels Steering Ability Using Improved Fictitious Master Synchronization Strategy

Abstract

Using an Electric Differential (ED) in electric vehicle has many advantages such as flexibility and direct torque control of the wheels during cornering and risky maneuvers. Despite its reported successes and advantages, the ED has several problems limits its applicability, for instance, an increment of control loops and an increase of computational effort. In this paper, an electric differential for an electric vehicle with four independent driven motors is proposed. The proposed ED is easy-to-implement and hasn't the problems of previous EDs. This ED has been developed for four wheels steering vehicles. The synchronization action is achieved by using an improved fictitious master technique, and the Ackerman principle is used to compute an adaptive desired wheel speed. The proposed ED is simulated and the operation of the system is studied. The simulation results show that ED ensures both reliability and good path tracking.