On the benefit of road preview on integrated chassis control

In the near future, integrated chassis controllers (ICCs), which are based on the coordinated or unified control of multiple vehicle dynamics actuators, are likely to benefit from the implementation of vehicle-to-everything communication, advanced sensors, sensor fusion, and driving automation. In fact, such techniques can anticipate information that has the potential of increasing the prediction accuracy and performance of model-based vehicle dynamics controllers. Although a few preliminary studies have explored road-preview-based vehicle dynamics control, there is a gap in terms of systematic comparisons of ICCs with different levels of preview, and their performance enhancement with respect to the corresponding controllers without preview. This study focuses on a nonlinear model predictive controller (NMPC) for integrated torque-vectoring and front-to-total anti-roll moment distribution control. In addition to the commonly adopted preview on the steering angle profile, multiple preview combinations are implemented, e.g., on the longitudinal and lateral accelerations, as well as on the individual tire-road friction factors. The sensitivity analyses, using an experimentally validated high-fidelity vehicle model and optimised tuning of each controller configuration, cover the benefit of each source of preview, while considering the effects of the: i) actuation dynamics; ii) prediction horizon; and iii) level of mismatch of the preview information.