Vision-based vehicle trajectory following with constant time delay

A convoy problem is formulated and solved for two four-wheeled vehicles. The task is for the second vehicle to follow the leader’s trajectory with a constant time delay. This delayed trajectory can be viewed as the trajectory of a delayed leader. This novel constant-time-delay concept allows for the estimation of the delayed leader’s speed and heading using the vehicle kinematics. Decoupled longitudinal and lateral controllers are developed based on the constant-time-delay approach. The lateral controller includes a look-ahead feature to compensate for steering delays. Successful field trials were conducted with full-sized military vehicles on a 1.3-kilometre test track. The tracking errors from differential global positioning system (DGPS) ground truth covering 13 kilometres are presented. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.