Sensorless External Force Separation Method for Pedestrian Force Manipulation in Low-Speed Unmanned Electric Vehicles

This paper proposes a method for sensorless separation of external forces acting on low-speed unmanned electric vehicles (EVs) to address a weakness in pedestrian force manipulation, specifically the issue of EVs stopping upon contact with road surface irregularities. This study focuses on suspension resonance transmitted to the wheels, which occurs only during contact with road surface irregularities. In the proposed method, the suspension resonance frequency components of the external forces acting on the wheels are estimated in real time, and their magnitudes are evaluated to achieve external force separation. Experiments were conducted using two types of bumps and two people to confirm that the proposed method enables a low-speed unmanned EV to separate the forces exerted by pedestrians and road surface irregularities, and to stop only when a pedestrian touches the vehicle.