Steering control of six-wheeled vehicles using linear quadratic regulator techniques

Abstract The middle- and rear-wheel steering angles of a six-wheeled vehicle need to be coordinated with the front-wheel steering angle to obtain the maximum manoeuvrability. A steering control strategy using the linear quadratic regulator technique with integral control is proposed in this paper such that both zero side-slip angle and target yaw rate following can be achieved simultaneously. An estimator to be used with the control law is also designed to provide the estimate of side-slip angle. AutoSim is used to establish a complex vehicle model with tyre dynamics in MATLAB/Simulink. Both open-loop and closed-loop manoeuvres are performed to evaluate the control performance of the proposed strategy.