Lateral Control of Autonomous Vehicles Using Multi-Model and Fuzzy Approaches

This paper discusses the fundamental issues in vehicle lateral motion control within Automated Highway Systems. Lane keeping control and lane changing control are concerned. One major challenge for lateral controller design is the smoothness and robustness under different vehicle conditions. A multi-model fuzzy controller, which includes four local controllers, is then proposed for both the operations of lane keeping and lane changing. These four local controllers are set up for four vehicle speed regions respectively. A fusion block is then introduced to ensure smooth and accurate transition between the different local controllers. The proposed controller inherits the advantages of both the multi-model control and fuzzy control. Simulations show that it could get good performances in the whole range of operation speed, and could also repel the system uncertainties such as changes in vehicle load, movement inertia and wheel cornering stiffness. Furthermore, the calculation procedure of the proposed controller is not complex, and is rather rapid. It appears a promising control algorithm for realtime embedded applications.