Vehicle control device and method

A vehicle control device that is applied to a vehicle including:

• a vehicle body;
• a pair of drive wheels that are mounted to the vehicle body at two positions, which are right and left positions with respect to a traveling direction, and respectively have motors that are independently driven;
• and steerable driven wheels mounted to the vehicle body, the vehicle control device controlling drive of the motors of the drive wheels to control travel of the vehicle,
• the vehicle control device comprising:
• a thrust calculation unit that calculates a thrust produced by rotation of the motors at the drive wheels when the vehicle travels on a predetermined path;
• a center of gravity calculation unit that calculates a position of a center of gravity of the vehicle in a coordinate system whose origin is a center position between the pair of drive wheels, based on the thrust calculated by the thrust calculation unit;
• and
• a control unit that controls rotational speeds or moving velocities of the drive wheels based on the position of the center of gravity.