Fault-Tolerant Trajectory Tracking Control for Corner-Module Electric Vehicle with Single-Wheel Failure

Abstract

Corner-module electric vehicles afford redundant control authority via four-wheel-independent steering, driving, and braking. Nevertheless, a single-wheel actuator fault reshapes the feasible force - moment envelope, consequently degrading both trajectory tracking and yaw stability. To tackle this challenge, this paper develops a hierarchical fault-tolerant trajectory tracking scheme that synthesizes smooth preview reference generation, upper-layer model predictive control with fuzzy weight adaptation, and lower-layer quadratic-programming-based control allocation. For the specific case of complete braking failure in the left-front wheel, the scheme introduces velocity reference reconfiguration and yaw-demand-scheduled braking - steering coordination to reconcile deceleration feasibility, lateral tracking accuracy, and directional stability. Comparative simulations against a fixed-coordination baseline demonstrate that the proposed yaw-demand scheduling reduces the root-mean-square (RMS) lateral and heading errors by 28.17% and 9.17%, respectively, while incurring an 18.18% increase in RMS velocity error. Overall, the results confirm that the proposed method not only enhances fault-tolerant tracking performance but also provides an adjustable trade-off between longitudinal tracking precision and yaw stability under in-wheel braking impairment.