Tire Force Estimation Based on Vehicle Motion and Its Experimental Validation

Abstract

As the autonomous motion control system of a vehicle becomes more sophisticated, the accurate predictions of tire forces, which are the key sources of vehicle motion, have become increasingly essential. In this paper, the lateral and vertical forces of the four-wheel tires were independently estimated by analyzing the resulting force and moment applied to the vehicle with respect to its motion, without using any a priori tire model. The proposed tire lateral force estimation logic is different from previous studies because it can identify independent forces on the left and on the right by appropriately compensating for nonlinearity caused by lateral load transfer and the influence of the initial toe angle. The proposed estimation logic was verified through experiments in various road surfaces and steering scenarios. The results of the experiments show that the proposed algorithms are viable in actual vehicle environments.