Throttle actuator control system for vehicle traction control

Accurate and quick positioning of the throttle valve in a gasoline engine required to implement various systems such as traction control systems (TCS), cruise control systems and drive-by-wire systems. In this research, the throttle actuator system for TCS application was developed. Unlike other systems, this system consists of only one throttle body to obtain small volume and low manufacturing cost, and uses a DC servo motor for quick and accurate responses. In order to drive the DC motor, a PWM signal generator and PWM amplifier were built and interfaced to the motor and controller. This paper also presents the position control logic of the throttle actuator with the TDC (time delay control) scheme with a variable reference model. By varying the reference model based on the size of the step changes in the target throttle angle, the TDC scheme yields good transient response characteristics in that both overshoot prevention and a quick response time are achieved. Actual vehicle tests with this developed system incorporated with the TCS system show that it satisfies all the conditions required for the TCS operation.