Path-Following Sliding Mode Controller for an Electric Vehicle Considering Actuator Dynamics

This study introduced a novel path-following controller tailored to electric vehicles equipped with a steer-by-wire system, i.e., the steering angle of the vehicle was defined by an electrical actuator. The control objective was to force the proper steering angle of the vehicle, which permits following a desired path. The system presupposed that an external algorithm that utilized sensor data provided the lateral movement references while maintaining a steady longitudinal velocity for the vehicle. The proposed control scheme was based on a robust sliding mode steering controller to manage the vehicle’s lateral movement. Furthermore, a brushless DC (BLDC) motor was considered as the steering actuator, which was controlled by a field-oriented controller (FOC), which was based on four internal proportional–integral (PI) control loops for precise steering actuation. To assess the performance of the proposed control scheme, numerical simulations were obtained, which demonstrated its effectiveness in achieving the control objective.