A Two-Layer Controller for Lateral Path Tracking Control of Autonomous Vehicles

This paper presents a two-layer controller for accurate and robust lateral path tracking control of highly automated vehicles. The upper-layer controller, which produces the front wheel steering angle, is implemented with a Linear Time-Varying MPC (LTV-MPC) whose prediction and control horizon are both optimized offline with particle swarm optimization (PSO) under varying working conditions. A constraint on the slip angle is imposed to prevent lateral forces from saturation to guarantee vehicle stability. The lower layer is a radial basis function neural network proportion-integral-derivative (RBFNN-PID) controller that generates electric current control signals executable by the steering motor to rapidly track the target steering angle. The nonlinear characteristics of the steering system are modeled and are identified on-line with the RBFNN so that the PID controller’s control parameters can be adjusted adaptively. The results of CarSim-Matlab/Simulink joint simulations show that the proposed hierarchical controller achieves a good level of path tracking accuracy while maintaining vehicle stability throughout the path tracking process, and is robust to dynamic changes in vehicle velocities and road adhesion coefficients.