Development of a torque-vectoring logic for a hybrid vehicle

This master thesis deals with a torque vectoring (TV) structure implemented on a hybrid vehicle, whose powertrain is composed like an All-Wheel-Drive (AWD): at the front each wheel is connected to an on-board electric motor, while at the rear there is an internal combustion engine (ICE). Three driving modes are available, each of them designed to improve the vehicle's behaviour compared to its passive configuration: in Normal mode, identical steady-state action and better dynamic behaviour are obtained, in Sport greater performance is achieved in both stationary and transient conditions and in Wet stability and safety are guaranteed with low friction. These targets are translated into a specific understeer characteristic in the reference generator, one of the macro subsystems with which the control is organized. The other is the high and low level controller: in the first a yaw moment is generated by a PI controller which is exploited in the second to manage the torque allocation to the wheels. The operation of the TV was verified by means of steady-state and transient numerical simulations, carrying out a co-simulation between VI-CarRealTime and MATLAB/Simulink, respectively where the vehicle model and the control were built.