Abstract: To improve the maneuverability and stability of the skid steer vehicle driven by hub motors,the advantages of torque vectoring control in vehicle dynamics were fully utilized. To solve the chattering problem in traditional sliding mode control,a direct yaw moment control method was proposed based on adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control（ AFSMC）. The AFSMC controller was designed to calculate the additional yaw moment for following the control target,and a fuzzy system was constructed to approximate the variable gain sign function in real time. The fuzzy adaptive law was derived through the Lyapunov method to enhance the robustness of the control strategy and suppress output control chattering. For the lower level,an optimized driving force distribution scheme based on tire load rate and weighting factors was proposed by establishing an objective function. In the proposed strategy,the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the vehicle was fully considered. The experimental results on a real vehicle show that by the proposed control strategy,the good performance in vehicle handling and stability can be achieved with strong robustness of the control system.