Evaluation of an intuitive 4WD drift assist control concept in a driving simulator

Date published

2025-12-31

Free to read from

2025-04-24

Supervisor/s

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Department

Type

Article

ISSN

0042-3114

Format

Citation

Sun Y, Velenis E, Krishnakumar A. (2025) Evaluation of an intuitive 4WD drift assist control concept in a driving simulator. Vehicle System Dynamics, Available online 10 April 2025

Abstract

In this paper, we present a concept of drift assist control for a 4-Wheel-Drive (4WD) electric vehicle that allows independent wheel torque control, aiming at an intuitive interaction with the average human driver. The concept is evaluated through a driver-in-loop trial using a driving simulator. Starting with a 4WD drift equilibrium analysis, we demonstrate the necessity of incorporating the throttle input for sideslip control and the idea of restricting the sideslip rate in order to assist the driver in stabilising the vehicle in drifting. Subsequently, we design a sideslip rate and yaw rate controller according to the desired sideslip angle from the driver using torque vectoring. To evaluate our control concept, a circular track is built in Cranfield University’s driving simulator based on the IPG CarMaker software. 34 participants were recruited to perform two drifting tasks, including the transition from normal cornering to drifting and regulating the sideslip under different configurations of sideslip damping rate and steering wheel feedback torque. Through subjective questionnaires and objective evaluation of vehicle states, the results show that our concept can assist the driver in intuitively controlling the vehicle during drifting.

Description

Software Description

Software Language

Github

Keywords

4007 Control Engineering, Mechatronics and Robotics, 40 Engineering, 4010 Engineering Practice and Education, 7 Affordable and Clean Energy, Automobile Design & Engineering, 40 Engineering, 49 Mathematical sciences, Drift assist control, torque vectoring, driver-in-loop trial, vehicle dynamics

DOI

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Relationships

Relationships

Resources

Funder/s

The financial and intellectual contributions of Rimac Technology are acknowledged for their role in supporting this research