Abstract Research and development of autonomous functions for a road vehicle become increasingly active in recent years. However, the vehicle driving dynamics performance and safety are the big challenge for the development of autonomous vehicles especially in severe environments. The optimum driving dynamics can only be achieved when the traction torque on all wheels can be influenced and controlled precisely. In this study, we present a novel approach to this problem by designing an advanced torque vectoring controller for an autonomous vehicle with four direct-drive in-wheel motors to generate and control the traction torque and speed quickly and precisely, thus to improve the stability and safety of the autonomous vehicle. A four in-wheel motored autonomous vehicle equipped with Radar and camera is modelled in PanoSim software environment. Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication is used in this software platform to avoid collision. Individual in-wheel motor control systems are integrated and networked together using a high-level advanced vectoring control system. The proposed vectoring control system can monitor and manage the behavior of the individual subsystems, assigning appropriate tasks to each of them according to the driving maneuver and road conditions. The performance and effectiveness of the proposed vectoring control system is evaluated using standard test maneuvers. Simulation results show that the proposed advanced torque vectoring controller can improve the vehicle steadiness and transient response properties, thereby enhancing the stability performance compared with the conventional central motor controller particularly for severe environment conditions. Introduction An autonomous car, also known as driverless car, self-driving car and robotic car, is an autonomous vehicle capable of fulfilling the main transportation capabilities of a traditional car. In 2010, Google unveiled its driverless-car technology. It has been testing self-driving cars on public roads in the United States [ 1]. Tesla announced that, as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in its factory - including Model 3 - will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver [ 2]. While fully autonomous driving is still limited to prototypes today. The safety and stability of the autonomous driven car is still the big concern for the manufactures and passengers. Many technologies are already used today in individual Advanced Driver Assistant Systems (ADAS) such as Adaptive Cruise Control Systems (ACCS), Autonomous Emergency Braking System (AEBS), Parking Assistant and Lane Keeping Assistant to direct the car to make correct and safe driving decisions [ 3,4,5]. In this study, we will develop an advanced torque vectoring controller for an autonomous vehicle with four direct-drive in-wheel motors to generate and control the traction torque and speed quickly and precisely, thus to improve the stability and safety of the autonomous vehicle. The development of the controller in a real vehicle is time-consuming and sometimes dangerous. This paper shall provide a novel simulation platform in PanoSim which is used throughout the study. Next, in section 3, the advanced torque vectoring controller is designed. Section 4 presents the simulation and results to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control method. Finally, conclusion and an outlook to future studies are offered in section 5. System Modeling PanoSim Introduction Figure 1. PanoSim Functions LayoutStability Control of Autonomous Vehicles with Four In-Wheel Motor Drive for Severe Environments2017-01-2001 Published 09/23/2017 Xin Li, Lixin Situ, Yongqiang Yu, and Feng Chen Hong Kong Productivity Council CITATION: Li, X., Situ, L., Yu, Y ., and Chen, F., "Stability Control of Autonomous Vehicles with Four In-Wheel Motor Drive for Severe Environments," SAE Technical Paper 2017-01-2001