Load problem of lightweight electric vehicles and solution by online model adaptation

Abstract

With the idea of designing new electric vehicles that reach high energy efficiencies by drastically reducing the curb weight, a completely new problem arises with respect to driving dynamics. The weight of everyday load has an increasing influence on the car’s mass and inertia properties as well as on the tire properties. Thus, vehicle dynamics and its parameters change with every trip. This work shows the consequences on passive behavior for different everyday load scenarios. An estimation algorithm is proposed that is able to determine the trip-individual parameters online and to provide vehicle dynamics controllers with adapted values.