Design of an Adaptive Distributed Drive Control Strategy for a Wheel-Side Rear-Drive Electric Bus

A wheel motor simplifies the chassis structure of an electric bus, greatly improving its response speed and controllability. How to improve the lateral stability of the vehicle under complex and changeable driving conditions is a major problem in the motion control of electric buses. This study proposed an adaptive distributed drive control strategy for a rear-wheel drive electric bus. An adaptive fuzzy controller was designed to obtain the additional yaw moment of the vehicle and then combined with a rule distribution method to modify the steering characteristics of the vehicle to obtain the optimal driving torque distribution. Hardware-in-the-loop test results showed that under adaptive fuzzy control, the yaw rate deviations under low- and high-speed conditions were reduced from 18% and 42% without control to 10% and 23% with control, respectively. Under sine wave conditions, the deviation of the yaw rate and the vehicle’s sideslip angle were reduced from 83% and 852% without control to 12% and 15% with control, respectively. It was verified that the electric bus with adaptive fuzzy control could maintain good vehicle stability at full speed.