Method for controlling a vehicle with two or more independently steered wheels

Patent · Tue Mar 28 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:35056

Reister, D B; Unseren, M A

A method is described for independently controlling each steerable drive wheel of a vehicle with two or more such wheels. An instantaneous center of rotation target and a tangential velocity target are inputs to a wheel target system which sends the velocity target and a steering angle target for each drive wheel to a pseudo-velocity target system. The pseudo-velocity target system determines a pseudo-velocity target which is compared to a current pseudo-velocity to determine a pseudo-velocity error. The steering angle targets and the steering angles are inputs to a steering angle control system which outputs to the steering angle encoders, which measure the steering angles. The pseudo-velocity error, the rate of change of the pseudo-velocity error, and the wheel slip between each pair of drive wheels are used to calculate intermediate control variables which, along with the steering angle targets are used to calculate the torque to be applied at each wheel. The current distance traveled for each wheel is then calculated. The current wheel velocities and steering angle targets are used to calculate the cumulative and instantaneous wheel slip and the current pseudo-velocity. 6 figures.

• Research Organization: Lockheed Martin Energy Syst Inc
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• Assignee: Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc., Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Patent Number(s): US 5,402,344/A/
• Application Number: PAN: 8-110,693
• OSTI ID: 35056
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
CALCULATION METHODS
CONTROL
CONTROL EQUIPMENT
DESIGN
SPEED REGULATORS
VEHICLES
VELOCITY
WHEELS