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A lunar roving vehicle (LRV) is an important and indispensable detection tool that can not only transport astronauts a long distance from the lunar module but also ensures their safety when moving around the lunar surface. Thus, it is very important to train astronauts to drive the LRV on Earth. However, astronauts will experience different properties and driving sensations for the same vehicle owing to the difference in the gravities of Earth and the Moon. Thus, it is hard to train them on Earth using a normal LRV. Therefore, an approach is used to produce a vehicle that has the same steering properties and driving sensations as the LRV on the lunar surface. This approach involves a control algorithm that is developed in this paper using the H ∞ control theory. The math calculation and visual simulation results show that a four-wheel steering imitating LRV, which uses an imitating control algorithm, with either a higher stiffness torsion bar spring or lower payload than the LRV has a high imitation accuracy for the yaw speed, slip angle, and lateral acceleration at the driver’s position. Finally, a highly accurate approach for imitating the steering of an LRV on the lunar surface has been realized, which lays the foundation for training astronauts to drive an LRV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel control scheme with a three-layer hierarchical structure to improve the cornering stability of the dual-motor rear-wheel drive (RWD) vehicles with the electronic differential system (EDS). The proposed hierarchical structure for the control system includes the observing layer, control layer, and actuation layer. In the observing layer, the driver model is designed to obtain the nominal steering angle, and the state observer is designed to obtain the yaw angle which cannot be easily measured. Then, particle swarm optimization (PSO) and second order sliding mode control (SOSMC) are employed in the control layer. The SOSMC part is used to design the control law to eliminate the chattering problem in the sliding mode algorithm, and the PSO part is used to obtain the optimal weights in the sliding mode surface to meet the minimum sideslip angle error and yaw rate error. The actuation layer allocates the corrected yaw moment by distributing the driving force to each independent driving wheel. Finally, the numerical tests are carried out under the double line change (DLC) maneuver. The results show that the proposed control system can effectively improve the cornering stability of the dual-motor RWD vehicles and reduce their motor power consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]