On the benefits of road preview on integrated chassis control

Integrated chassis controllers (ICCs), which are based on the coordinated or unified control of multiple vehicle dynamics actuators, are likely to benefit from vehicle-to-everything communication, advanced sensors, sensor fusion, and driving automation. In fact, such techniques anticipate information that can increase prediction accuracy and performance of model-based vehicle dynamics controllers. Although a few publications have explored road-preview-based vehicle dynamics control, there is a gap in terms of a critical assessment of the benefits of ICCs with different levels of preview. This preliminary proof-of-concept study analyses the potential advantage of a set of road preview variables provided to nonlinear model predictive controllers (NMPCs) for integrated torque-vectoring and front-to-total anti-roll moment distribution. In addition to the commonly adopted steering input preview, multiple preview combinations are implemented, e.g. on the longitudinal and lateral accelerations, as well as on the tyre-road friction factors. The sensitivity analyses, using an experimentally validated high-fidelity vehicle model and optimised control tunings, cover the benefit of each source of preview, while considering the effects of (i) actuation dynamics, (ii) prediction horizon and (iii) level of mismatch of the preview information.