Direct tuning of gain-scheduled controller for electro-pneumatic clutch position control

This study proposes a gain-scheduled controller with direct tuning for the position control of a pneumatic clutch actuator that is installed in heavy-duty trucks. Pneumatic clutch actuators are highly nonlinear systems and cannot be easily controlled. Industries require a simple controller design that is easy to understand and requires few trial-and-error calibrations. Therefore, we adopted a gain-scheduled proportional integral derivative (PID) control law, which is a well-known and easy-to-understand nonlinear control method. In this approach, a gain scheduler is expressed using polynomials composed of coefficient parameters and controlled object states. The unknown coefficient parameters of the polynomials are directly tuned from the controlled object input/output data without having to use a controlled object model. The proposed controller design procedure is simple and does not require system identification or trial-and-error tuning. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by an experiment using an actual vehicle. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method for the position control of pneumatic clutch actuators.

Gain-scheduled H∞ controller synthesis for actively steered longer and heavier commercial vehicles

This paper proposes a gain-scheduled controller synthesis for improving the lateral performance and stability of articulated heavy vehicles by active steering of the selected towed vehicle units. The longitudinal velocity is on-line measurable, and it is thus treated as a scheduling parameter in the gain-scheduled controller synthesis. The lateral performance of four articulated heavy vehicles, including existing Nordic heavy vehicles and prospective longer articulated heavy vehicles, are investigated with and without active steering and compared with a commonly used conventional tractor–semitrailer. The control problem is formulated as an [Formula: see text] static output feedback, which uses only information from articulation angles between the steered vehicle unit and the vehicle unit in front of it. The solution of the problem is obtained within the linear matrix inequality framework, while guaranteeing [Formula: see text] performance objectives. Effectiveness of the designed controller is verified through numerical simulations performed on high-fidelity vehicle models. The results confirm a significant reduction in yaw rate rearward amplification, lateral acceleration rearward amplification, and high-speed transient off-tracking, thereby improving the lateral stability and performance of all studied heavy vehicles at high speeds.