Special Session #3: Four independent Wheel Drive Electric Vehicles

Co-chair: Michele Vignati, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Co-chair: Mattia Belloni, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

Abstract: – The dawn of electric vehicle allows to redesign the vehicle powertrain architecture. Among the possible layouts, four-independent wheel drive electric vehicle powertrain architecture offers several advantages, including improving the vehicle handling characteristics via torque vectoring, maximizing the energy recovered while braking with suitable blended braking strategies, gaining room onboard the vehicle, and others. This layout can be achieved with both onboard and in-wheel motors. The special session aims at highlighting all the aspect related to the choice of such a powertrain layout from the vehicle dynamics to the design of motors, brakes, and suspensions to the control strategies. 

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the application to four independent wheel drive vehicle of:

• Torque vectoring control
• Torque allocation
• Traction control
• Electric and hydraulic brake coordination (brake blending)
• Anti-lock braking system with electric motors
• Unsprung masses with In-Wheel Motors
• Electric motor design for independent wheel drive (onboard and in-wheel)

 

Chair’s bio:

Michele Vignati

Michele Vignati received his MSc degree (2013) and PhD (2017) in mechanical engineering from the Mechanical Engineering Department of Politecnico di Milano with a thesis on control strategies for distributed powertrains of hybrid and electric vehicles. Since 2022, he has been a Senior Assistant Professor (RTDB) of applied mechanics. His research focuses on mechanical systems dynamics and control applied to the automotive field of which he has more than 40 publications in
international journals and conferences. In 2018 he won the best paper award for a paper presented at the AVEC’18 international conference. He works on tire, vehicle, and vehicle subsystems in cooperation with several international companies. He teaches “Vehicle Dynamics and Control” and “Control and Actuators for Agriculture” courses.

Mattia Belloni

Mattia Belloni received his M.S. degree (2021) in Mechanical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano with a thesis on the torque distribution on an independent wheel-driven electric vehicle accounting four electric and mechanical brakes. Since 2021 he is Ph.D. candidate in the research field of applied mechanics in Mechanical Engineering dept. of Politecnico di Milano. His research focuses on mechanical systems dynamics and control applied in the automotive field. His previous works focused on the efficiency of electric vehicles, on torque distribution and blended braking on full electric passenger cars and energy consumption in full electric buses. Recently, he is working on the dynamics of agricultural vehicles using multibody approach.