Optimal control of active front wheel steering for vehicles under perturbation of crosswind

Crosswind has substantial influence on the handling and stability of vehicles. Based on the analysis of vehicle stability under perturbation of crosswind, a control strategy for active front wheel steering (AFS) is proposed. The controller was designed using linear quadratic optimal control algorithm with the aim of tracking the target values of yaw rate and side slip angle. Based on the co-simulation platform of MATLAB/Simulink and CarSim, vehicle dynamics model, single-point preview driver model, controller model, and road and crosswind models were built to evaluate the control algorithm. Simulation results show that AFS can effectively improve vehicle handling and stability under crosswind, and has good robustness against variation of vehicle speed and tire/road friction coefficient.