Exploring the Potential of Camber Control to Improve Vehicles’ Energy Efficiency during Cornering

Abstract

Actively controlling the camber angle to improve energy efficiency has recently gained interest due to the importance of reducing energy consumption and the driveline electrification trend that makes cost-efficient implementation of actuators possible. To analyse how much energy that can be saved with camber control, the effect of changing the camber angles on the forces and moments of the tyre under different driving conditions should be considered. In this paper, Magic Formula tyre models for combined slip and camber are used for simulation of energy analysis. The components of power loss during cornering are formulated and used to explain the influence that camber angles have on the power loss. For the studied driving paths and the assumed driver model, the simulation results show that active camber control can have considerable influence on power loss during cornering. Different combinations of camber angles are simulated, and a camber control algorithm is proposed and verified in simulation. The results show that the camber controller has very promising application prospects for energy-efficient cornering.

Contributions of vehicle dynamics to the energy efficient operation of road and rail vehicles

“…Equation (9) shows that the cornering resistance is proportional to the square of the slip angle and demonstrates the importance of slip losses with increasing tyre force demands. For example, the cornering losses for a battery electric bus has been estimated by a combination of simulations and measurements for different driving cycles to be up to 6% of the total powertrain energy [6].…”

“…A couple of authors have investigated camber control to improve the energy efficiency of road vehicles. In some cases, camber control was combined with other controllers, such as active steering and torque vectoring (for example [8][9][10]). Based on steady-state cornering simulations, Sun et al [8] concluded that the total power loss of a passenger car (including rolling resistance, aerodynamic resistance and longitudinal and lateral slip losses) could be reduced by 5-13% using camber control with up to +/−5 degrees.…”

“…Based on steady-state cornering simulations, Sun et al [8] concluded that the total power loss of a passenger car (including rolling resistance, aerodynamic resistance and longitudinal and lateral slip losses) could be reduced by 5-13% using camber control with up to +/−5 degrees. In [9] the total computed power loss also included a simplified model of the power needed to control the camber angle, as well as the effect of camber angle on the rolling resistance moment and aligning moment. For the investigated cornering manoeuvre, the saving of the total power loss was found to be between 1.4 and 22%.…”

Review of Integrated Chassis Control Techniques for Automated Ground Vehicles

“…The sub-systems that can be included in the ICC are brakes, electric motors, active suspension variants [ 2 , 3 ], and active steering [ 4 , 5 ]. In some studies, less widespread components such as active aerodynamics [ 2 ], wheel positioning systems [ 6 , 7 ], anti-roll bars [ 8 ], and dynamic tyre pressure control [ 9 ] are also considered within the ICC context. Hence, diverse actuator combinations are possible, making the ICC an over-actuated system.…”

Energy-Efficient Direct Yaw Moment Control for In-Wheel Motor Electric Vehicles Utilising Motor Efficiency Maps

“…In addition to enhancing the stability, through proper distribution of the wheel torques, DYC can reduce the power consumption. During vehicle cornering, tyre slip loss can be a large proportion of the total power loss [4]. Kobayashi et al [5,6] studied how DYC changes the cornering resistance and developed an energy-efficient DYC which can minimise the tyre slip loss thereby reducing the energy consumption during vehicle cornering.…”