Development of a simulation tool for the cornering performance analysis of6WD/6WS vehicles

In this study, a simulation tool is developed to investigate non steady-sta te cornering performance of 6WD/6WS special-purpose vehicles. 6WD vehicles are believed to have good performance in off-the-road maneuvering and to ha ve fail-safe capabilities. But the cornering performance of 6WS vehicles ar e not yet well understood in the relevant literature. In this paper, 6WD/6W S vehicles are modeled as an 18 DOF system that considers non-linear vehicl e dynamics, tire models, and kinematic effects. The vehicle model is constr ucted as a simulation tool using MATLAB/SIMULINK so that input/output and v ehicle parameters can be changed easily with the modulated approach. Corner ing performance of 6WS vehicles is analyzed for brake steering and pivoting , respectively. Simulation results show that cornering performance depends on the middle-wheel steering as well as front/rear wheel steering. In addit ion, a new 6WS control law is proposed in order to minimize the sideslip an gle. Lane change simulation results demonstrate the advantage of 6WS vehicl es with the proposed control law.