A Lateral Slope Curve Tracking Control for Autonomous Vehicles Considering Dynamic Adaptive Sideslip Angles

To address the problems that the autonomous vehicle deviated from the expected trajectory at the lateral slope curve, and even losed stability owing to severe sideslipping, a dynamic adaptive control strategy for sideslip angle was proposed. To overcome the change of tire cornering stiffness caused by the changes of vertical loads of the vehicles, the load matching diagram was obtained by fitting multiple sets of data. Then, a lateral trajectory tracking controller was designed based on the model prediction control algorithm. In line with the entry speed of the vehicles into the turn, the prediction horizon was selected. Meanwhile, the transient-state and steady-state sideslip angle were selected in line with the road curve. Through online optimization, the optimal front wheel steering angle was generated. Finally, the CarSim/Simulink joint online simulation system and the real vehicles system were established for verification. The results demonstrate that the proposed control strategy may ensure that the vehicles will not have serious sideslip under the lateral slope inclination angle of around 7% and the curved road. In addition, the proposed control strategy improves the tracking accuracy of the autonomous vehicles in the lateral slope curve tracking task and makes the vehicles have good lateral stability. © 2024 Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. All rights reserved.