Automated driving and electro-mobility are two of the key technologies for the future of road transportation. Automated driving has the potential to decrease road accidents due to human errors and to improve traffic flow, energy efficiency and passenger comfort. Electro-mobility is considered as a central component of a sustainable and climate friendly transportation system on the basis of renewable energies. The activities of the DLR Institute of Vehicle Concepts in the automotive field are mainly contributing to these technologies. We have been developing multifaceted innovative approaches for mechatronic X-by-Wire chassis aiming at the simultaneous improvement of energy efficiency, driving safety and comfort. Essential fields of research are the development of model- and AI-based control systems, with focus on motion planning, vehicle dynamics and chassis control, vehicle state estimation, model predictive full vehicle control, and active and semi-active suspension control, together with other core topics of electro-mobility. The latter comprise energy management, battery control and battery state estimation.
Motion Planning
The top layer of the scalable vehicle dynamics control architecture is formed by a generic vehicle application layer including interactive driving, remote control, and semi- or fully autonomous driving.
Vehicle Dynamics Control
The integrated chassis control of over-actuated X-by-Wire architectures (as with the ROboMObil), where the steering angle, driving and braking torque of each wheel can be individually imposed, has been an important research topic at the institute.
Actuator Control
The lowest layer of the scalable vehicle dynamics control architecture, is assigned to the actuators. It comprises the physical execution of the control commands from the overlying motion execution layer.
Methods and Tools
Key research topics are the development of AI enriched methods and toolboxes for control and system diagnostic tasks plus the development of fault tolerant control for highly automated (battery electric) X-by-Wire vehicles.