Multi-Actuated Control of Car-Semitrailer Systems via Nonlinear MPC

This paper investigates the integration of torque vectoring (TV) and active suspension (AS) control on the towing vehicle for yaw rate tracking, and trailer sway reduction in car-semitrailer systems. Due to the nonlinear influence of antiroll moment distribution, nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) is employed. Several real-time NMPC algorithms are developed and compared, using either predicted hitch dynamics or estimated hitch joint forces, in a high-fidelity simulation environment with an optimization-based tuning routine. Results show that: (i) integrated AS and TV control outperforms other configurations and, (ii) NMPCs based on hitch joint force estimation are a viable alternative to those embedding hitch dynamics at the cost of reduced robustness.