_Applied_  
_sciences_  
_Article_  
**Driving Force Distribution and Control for Maneuverability**  
**and Stability of a 6 WD Skid-Steering EUGV with Independent Drive Motors**  
[PERSON] 1,2,3,4, [PERSON] 1,3,4,*, [PERSON] 1,3,4, [PERSON] 1,3,4, [PERSON] 1,3,4 and [PERSON] 1,2,3,4  
1 Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (H.Z. ); xtao@hfcasa.ccn (X.T. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (Y.D. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (B.Y. ); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (R.B.) 2 University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
3 Anhui Engineering Laboratory for Intelligent Driving Technology and Application, Hefei 230031, China
4 Innovation Research Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China
*Correspondence: [EMAIL_ADDRESS]; Tel./Fax: +86-551-6539-3191  
**Featured Application: The paper proposes a hierarchical driving force distribution and control strategy for six-wheel drive (6 WD) skid-steering electric unmanned ground vehicles (EUGVs) with independent drive motors to improve the vehicle maneuverability and stability. The proposed method can be applied to control the longitudinal velocity and yaw rate for distributed, independently driven electrical skid-steering vehicles, for instance, military vehicles, agricultural vehicles, and other special vehicles. **  
Maneuverability and Stability of a 6 WD**  
Said-Steering EUGV with Independent Drive Motors. _Appl. Sci._**2021**, _11_, 961. [[https://doi.org/10.3390/app1103961](https://doi.org/10.3390/app1103961)]([https://doi.org/10.3390/app1103961](https://doi.org/10.3390/app1103961))  
Academic Editor: [PERSON] Rece Received: 23 December 2020  
Accepted: 18 January 2021  
**Published: 21 January 2021**  
hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and pure electric vehicles (EVs) [2; 7; 8; 9; 10]. Currently, the electric UGV (EUGV) is attracting great research focus by reason of its wide applications and the development of electric motor and control technology. The drive forms for EUGVs are mainly divided into centralized drive systems and distributed drive systems. Compared to the centralized drive system, the distributed drive system is composed of two or more independent drive wheels. With the development of independent drive technology, EUGVs with distributed drive systems have tremendous potential to improve vehicle maneuverability and lateral stability. That is because the independent drive wheels can be directly actuated and independently controlled; the six-wheel independent drive EUGV will be focused on in this paper. In order to realize and improve the maneuverability and lateral stability of EVs with the distributed drive system, various methods have been studied and developed for four-wheel drive (4 WD) EVs driven by independent motors, and research into 6 WD and 8 WD EVs has been completed based on those achievements. An EV with independent drive wheels is an over-actuated system, and each wheel can be controlled directly and individually. Therefore, these methods mainly concentrate on vehicle motion control and driving force distribution. In vehicle motion control research, the longitudinal and lateral motion controllers have attracted great research efforts. The algorithm utilized for motion controller design in prior literature includes a proportion-integral-differential (PID) controller [11; 12], H-infinite controller [13], sliding mode controller (SMC) [14; 15; 16], linear quadratic regulator (LQR) [17], and model-predicted controller (MPC) [18; 19]. The motion controller has been applied to calculate the vehicle resultant force for tracking the longitudinal motion and vehicle's resultant yaw moment for tracking the later motion, according to the vehicle's desired input and actual output. This vehicle resultant force and yaw moment are supported by each wheel with independent drive motors. Then, the driving force distribution is the next research point.