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The temperature of axle box bearing is always one of the indicators used to monitor whether the high-speed train is running safely. In this paper, a thermal model of axle box bearing considering the change of bearing lubrication state and the operating condition of the high-speed train was established. Based on the analysis of the generation mechanism of frictional heat inside the bearing, the influence of proportion of grease involved in lubrication was introduced for the first time and a detailed temperature transfer system of the axle box system was established. At the same time, through the axle box bearing-vehicle system dynamics model, the vertical and lateral loads of the axle box bearing under different operating condition were obtained as input parameters of the axle box bearing thermal model, the temperature distribution curve of the bearing under different operating conditions was obtained. Finally, based on the long-term wireless transmission device system (WTDS) temperature monitoring data, the calculation results of the established model were verified. The verification results showed the reliability of the model established in this paper, and showed the necessity of considering the change of the internal lubrication state of the bearing when evaluating the axle box bearing temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of autonomous vehicles has brought about significant advancements in transportation technology, promising safer and more efficient means of travel. However, their full integration into society depends on the accuracy of path-tracking realised by a lateral controller. Lateral control is achieved by regulating the steering angle to minimise the lateral error between the vehicle and a target point at a look-ahead distance on the reference path. This paper investigates the look-ahead distance as it is considered a key parameter that impacts vehicle performance, stability, and energy consumption. A qualitative analysis is performed to deduct a set of rules to adapt the look-ahead distance to three parameters: vehicle velocity, road curvature, and road adherence. Then, an original explicit mathematical formulation is developed for the look-ahead distance as a function of the considered parameters. A fuzzy logic decision for the look-ahead distance is further established and compared with the formulated one. Both approaches are implemented on a look-ahead distance-based lateral controller based on the super-twisting sliding mode control. Simulation results carried out in a joint simulation between Simulink/MatLab and SCANeR $ ^{{\rm TM}} $ TM Studio vehicle dynamics simulator demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed model on vehicle performance, stability, computational efficiency, and energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrification of commercial vehicles has led to new wheel torque allocation options for propulsion and braking of articulated heavy vehicles. Each unit or axle can be individually braked or propelled whilst the other units or axles are excluded from such action. This may achieve the best energy efficiency. However, this can also lead to potential yaw stability problems such as jackknifing and trailer swing, especially under bad loading and weather conditions. This paper describes the above instabilities and introduces a nonlinear single-track model to study the vehicle dynamics of the tractor-semitrailer combination. The effects of different vehicle and environment parameters are analysed with this vehicle model. A safe operating envelope for limiting the wheel forces is obtained using this vehicle model. Since the vehicle model introduced in this paper is computationally effective, it can be run online in real vehicles, with an instantaneous safe operating envelope obtained for the momentary conditions. Thus, yaw instabilities such as jackknifing and trailer swing may be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vibration of high-speed trains induced by track irregularities is a main factor affecting ride comfort. Especially, the long-wavelength track irregularities can reduce the passengers' ride comfort by increasing the vibration of the high-speed trains. A three-dimensional human body model coupled to a vehicle body and tracks is established to form a coupled human-seat-vehicle-track system for investigating the influence of the long-wavelength track irregularities on ride comfort. The parameters of the seated human model are determined by measurement based on the multi-island GA method. The coupled model is then used to evaluate the ride comfort of high-speed trains using ISO 2631 under the excitation of the track longitudinal level irregularities. The effects of primary, secondary suspension, and seat support vertical stiffness and damping on ride comfort are analysed. The results show that the track's longitudinal irregularities lead to high human body vibration levels and large ride comfort indices (lower ride comfort), especially when the irregularity excitation frequency is near the natural frequency of the high-speed train. The passengers' ride comfort is more sensitive to the vertical secondary suspension stiffness than the other suspension parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four-wheel steering (4WS) is an effective technique to improve handling performance and lateral stability of road vehicles. Conventionally, controllers utilise the driver's actions and vehicle dynamics to coordinate front and rear-axle steering. This paper proposes a novel approach for 4WS controller design, based on the concept of Artificial Flow Guidance (AFG), which relies on a spatially distributed motion reference through a two-dimensional vector field. This field provides high-level guidance while lower-level steering controllers to control axle centres motions relative to the flow. These flow vectors, computed in real-time via simple geometric construction, can be pre-computed globally to evaluate the guidance algorithm's efficacy. When controlling only the front axle, this same approach can function as an autonomous driving system. Relying solely on a spatial reference field and control targets' velocities enables the controller to work in a simple and robust fashion, without using a reference vehicle dynamics model or lengthy parameter tuning. The proposed approach's effectiveness is validated through co-simulation with MATLAB/Simulink and the CarMaker simulation platform. AFG control performance is found to be at least comparable to that of more complex 4WS controllers using methods such as MPC; in the cases considered, AFG provides superior path-tracking performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a novel control strategy for autonomous vehicles, which can effectively handle the nonlinear effects and uncertainties of the controlled system. This solution is based on a new formulation of the ultra-local model-based control approach. This method can deal with the unknown dynamics and other uncertainties of the vehicle without any further measurement or complex modelling process. The control methods require a reduced-complexity nominal linear model of the system, and the unknown part is continuously estimated by the proposed ultra-local model. The proposed control-oriented vehicle modelling method leads to an increased performance level of vehicle motion. The effectiveness of the proposed method through a high-fidelity vehicle simulator (CarMaker) is illustrated. Moreover, the operation of the control through its implementation on a test vehicle of ThyssenKrupp is also demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi-active primary suspensions are an effective means of improving ride quality in high-speed railway vehicles in relation to the mitigation of car-body bending vibration. In this paper, prototype magnetorheological (MR) dampers are tested and the results are used to define a mathematical model of the dampers. Then, three control schemes for semi-active primary suspensions are proposed: Skyhook, LQG and Mix-1-Sensor, and their performance is assessed by means of Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) tests considering a simple quarter-vehicle model which is run on a real-time board and set in interaction with one physical MR damper. The results show that all three considered control strategies lead to a reduction of car-body vibration by around 30% and a very good agreement is found between HIL tests and numerical simulations in which the physical damper is replaced by the mathematical damper model. The damper model is finally interfaced with a flexible multi-body model of the complete vehicle to provide further assessment of semi-active control. The results of the latter simulations show that the semi-active suspension could provide an improvement of the $ {N_{mvz}} $ N mvz ride quality index in the order of 40–45% with respect to the passive vehicle for all three control schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polygonalization is a typical non-uniform wear phenomenon that affects the performance and comfort of the vehicle/track system. Therefore, the vehicle system performance could be strictly troubled by polygonal damage close to the wheel circumference at the wheel/rail contact. A 3D vehicle/track an EMU type train consisting of 8 coupled vehicles model has been established. The coupled model car body and bogie frame are considered rigid and integrated with the flexible wheelset, rail, and slab track to investigate the elastic deformation caused by the impact load induced by the wheel polygonalization. The flexible track can be incorporated into the multi-body vehicle model using the movable reference frame formulation. Uncertainty parameters are presented, such as passenger weight, wind force, coefficient friction, and suspension variation. The proposed research is validated based on the existing research work and shows excellent agreement. The simulation result deliberated the vertical wheel-rail force, wheelset acceleration, rail acceleration, rail displacement, and slab track acceleration. The results of this study show that as the wheel polygonal damage amplitude increase, the value of wheel/rail normal forces and the dynamic vibrational response of the wheelset axle increase. Additionally, polygonal wear-induced impact stresses may cause the wheelset axle to resonate. When wheel polygonal damage amplitude and uncertainty parameters are corporate into the system dynamics, the maximum magnitude of the wheelset, rail, and slab track acceleration increases. Besides, the train failure degree is comparable to the polygonised wheel harmonic order, defect parameters, and amplitude of out-of-roundness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase vehicle dynamics modelling accuracy in simulation environments, in this work, we propose a model, where the mutual influence of the vehicle dynamics and tyre wear is taken into account. In this context, simulation-oriented models aim at representing the main features of the vehicle dynamics, while keeping the complexity low, making them suitable for control-oriented analyses and design. The wear model quantifies tyre wear as a tyre mass loss depending on the tyre-road interaction, derived from the vehicle dynamics and kinematics; then, the outcome of this model is consequently used to update the tyre friction characteristics, by modifying the main parameters of the Pacejka's magic formula. We also discuss the steps required to use the model in two-wheeled vehicles, where the roll dynamics plays an important role in the tyre wear. The main features of the developed model are discussed on a motorcycle, as a simulation case-study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a typical traffic scenario, automated vehicles are required to interact with surrounding traffic participants, e.g. human-driven vehicles, pedestrians, etc. In this paper, a novel adaptive authority allocation strategy considering the social behaviours of surrounding vehicles is proposed for the shared steering control (SSC) of automated vehicles. First, a Koopman-based potential-field-driven distributed model predictive control (K-PF-DMPC) method is proposed for the modelling of vehicle interaction to describe surrounding vehicle's social behaviour. This method effectively deals with the nonlinearity embedded in the non-cooperative game-based vehicle interaction model, so that the analytical form of Nash equilibrium can be derived for a fast online solution. Then, the SSC system of the automated vehicle is implemented by a weighted summation method. To balance the driving performance and intervention degree while considering the surrounding vehicles' social behaviours, a hybrid fuzzy strategy (HFS) is proposed for allocating the control authority between the driver and automation. The value of authority allocation coefficient is calculated by fusing the outputs from two shared fuzzy controllers, i.e. the enhanced and weakened shared fuzzy controllers, in accordance to the belief of the surrounding vehicle's type. Several numerical simulations and driver-in-the-loop simulator experiments are conducted for validation. Results show that the proposed strategy can provide appropriate steering intervention to the driver owing to the consideration of the surrounding vehicle's social behaviour and obtains the best driver-automation collaboration performance compared with the comparative groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a general approach to model the motion of a rigid body ground vehicle on a smooth nonplanar road surface. We generalise planar control-oriented models while preserving standard model states, inputs and outputs. We derive our approach from first principles, apply it to existing vehicle modelling approaches and test it through real-world experiments. We demonstrate that our approach improves upon the prediction accuracy of planar models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called g-g diagram is widely employed to assess the performance of road vehicles since it provides the maximum longitudinal and lateral accelerations that can be extracted from the selected vehicle. The different points of the g-g diagram are usually computed independently from one another, e.g. the maximum longitudinal accelerations corresponding to given lateral accelerations are computed sequentially. In this work, the problem of computing the points of the g-g diagram is transformed into an optimal control problem, which allows to avoid one of the most annoying practical problems often encountered when deriving such diagrams, namely the 'jumps' between different solutions (i.e. large slip vs. small slip solutions at similar lateral acceleration) in adjacent points along the g-g envelope. In the proposed method, the objective is to maximise the area enclosed within the g-g diagram, which has a polar representation. The rate of change of the radial coordinate is the control input. Additional constraints are included to enforce the continuity between the states of the vehicle model in adjacent points along the envelope. These conditions can hardly be enforced using standard methods based on sequential and independent computation of the g-g points. An example of the application of the method is demonstrated on the classic double-track car model with nonlinear tyres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we compared the linear and nonlinear motion prediction models of a long combination vehicle (LCV). We designed a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) for trajectory-following and off-tracking minimisation of the LCV. The used prediction model allowed coupled longitudinal and lateral dynamics together with the possibility of a combined steering, propulsion and braking control of those vehicles in long prediction horizons and in all ranges of forward velocity. For LCVs where the vehicle model is highly nonlinear, we showed that the control actions calculated by a linear time-varying model predictive control (LTV-MPC) are relatively close to those obtained by the NMPC if the guess linearisation trajectory is sufficiently close to the nonlinear solution, in contrast to linearising for specific operating conditions that limit the generality of the designed function. We discussed how those guess trajectories can be obtained allowing off-line fixed time-varying model linearisation that is beneficial for real-time implementation of MPC in LCVs with long prediction horizons. The long prediction horizons are necessary for motion planning and trajectory-following of LCVs to maintain stability and tracking quality, e.g. by optimally reducing the speed prior to reaching a curve, and by generating control actions within the actuators limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]