High-performance voltage stabilizer design for autonomous EV powertrains using a robust cascade sliding-mode approach

This study focuses on designing electric powertrain and navigation systems for an autonomous electric vehicle under various trajectory conditions. The powertrain is configured as an RWD–4 × 2 system, powered by a 400 (V) lithium battery pack, delivering approximately 65 (kW) to a PMSM. The first novelty of this study lies in the design of the navigation system based on a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) for specific trajectory scenarios, utilizing seven levels of lateral error ey and heading angle error eϕ to determine the steering angle Δ. The second novelty is the design of a 600 (V) DC-DC boost converter control system using a cascaded Adaptive Sliding-Mode Control (ASMC) approach for both current and voltage regulation. The results show that the vehicle can accelerate from 0 to 40 (km/h) in under 3 (s), while the ASMC-based control of the DC-DC boost converter ensures that the output voltage reaches 600 (V) within 0.17 (s), achieving nearly 50% faster response compared to a passive system and maintaining stability throughout the acceleration process. The navigation system maintains the lateral tracking error below 1.2 (m) using FLC with triangle membership functions and 3.3 (m) using FLC with trapezoid functions.