Vehicle Dynamics Virtual Sensing Using Unscented Kalman Filter: Simulations and Experiments in a Driver-in-the-loop setup

Chassis Active Safety Systems require access to a set of vehicle dynamics motion states which measurement is neither trivial nor cost-effective (e.g. lateral velocity). In this work, virtual sensing is applied to vehicle dynamics and proposed as a cost-effective solution to infer the vehicle planar motion states and three-axis tyre forces from signals measured by inexpensive sensors. Specifically, the tyre longitudinal forces are estimated using Adaptive Random-Walk Linear Kalman Filters and the vehicle planar motion states are determined in a hybrid state estimator formed by an Unscented Kalman Filter and Feedforward Neural Networks. The tyre vertical forces are estimated using a quasi-static weight transfer approach and Recursive Least Squares. The complete structure is integrated into a modular fashion and tested experimentally using a driver-in-the-loop setup. An extensive catalogue of manoeuvres is executed by a real driver to evidence the performance of the proposed virtual sensor at the limits of handling.