Coupled longitudinal/lateral controllers for autonomous vehicles navigation, with experimental validation

Alia Chebly (1) , Reine Talj (1) , Ali Charara (1)

1 Heudiasyc - Heuristique et Diagnostic des Systèmes Complexes [Compiègne]

In this work, the coupled control of the lateral and the longitudinal dynamics of an autonomous vehicle is addressed. As a first step, a multi-body modeling technique is used to develop a four wheeled vehicle planar model. This technique considers the vehicle as a robot consisting of articulated bodies. The geometric description of the vehicle system is derived using the modified Denavit-Hartenberg parameterization and then the dynamic model of the vehicle is computed by applying a recursive method used in robotics, namely Euler-Lagrange based Algorithm. The validation of the developed vehicle model was then conducted using an automotive simulator, the Scaner-Studio simulator. The developed vehicle model is then used to derive coupled control laws for the lateral and the longitudinal vehicle dynamics. Two coupled controllers are proposed: In the first controller, the control is realized using Lyapunov control techniques while in the second one an Immersion and Invariance with sliding mode approach is used. Both of the controllers aim to ensure a robust tracking of the reference trajectory and the desired speed while taking into account the strong coupling between the lateral and the longitudinal vehicle dynamics. In fact, the coupled controller is a key step for the vehicle safety handling, especially in coupled maneuvers such as lane-change maneuvers, obstacle avoidance maneuvers and combined maneuvers in critical driving situations. The developed controllers were validated in simulation under Matlab/Simulink using experimental data. Subsequently, an experimental validation of the proposed controllers was conducted using a robotized vehicle (Renault-ZOE) present in the Heudiasyc laboratory within the Equipex Robotex project.

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique

Alia Chebly, Reine Talj, Ali Charara. Coupled longitudinal/lateral controllers for autonomous vehicles navigation, with experimental validation. Control Engineering Practice, 2019, 88, pp.79-96. ⟨10.1016/j.conengprac.2019.05.001⟩. ⟨hal-02407330⟩