MPC-based path tracking controller design for autonomous ground vehicles

Abstract

It is an important and essential aspect for autonomous ground vehicles to follow the desired path. In this manuscript, a path tracking controller using model predictive control (MPC) method is proposed. In order to describe the vehicle motion and its dynamics, kinematics and dynamics integrated model is first presented. Then, the control strategy is proposed and MPC is employed to design the path tracking controller. In the following, the stability analysis is carried out and it shows that the system is proven to be asymptotically stable and theoretically it has no static error. In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed MPC-based path tracking controller, veDYNA-Simulink joint simulations under different velocities and road friction coefficient are carried out and the results illustrate that the path tracking algorithm obtains good tracking performance.