A highly scalable path-following controller for N-trailers with off-axle hitching

•Path following is considered for N-trailers with off-axle sign-homogeneous hitching.•A highly scalable cascaded-like nonlinear controller is proposed.•The approach does not require determination of the shortest distance to a path.•Constant- and varying-curvature reference paths can be asymptotically followed.•Experimental results obtained with a 3-trailer vehicle are reported.

The paper presents a highly scalable nonlinear cascaded-like path-following feedback controller for N-trailer robotic vehicles equipped with arbitrary number of off-axle hitched trailers. In contrast to the other path-following control laws proposed in the literature for N-trailer robots, the presented control approach does not require determination of the shortest distance to a reference path. By introducing the so-called segment-platooning reference paths, and under the sign-homogeneity assumption for hitching offsets, the asymptotic following is guaranteed for both constant- and varying-curvature reference paths using either backward or forward vehicle motion strategy with a guidance point fixed on the last trailer. The paper contains experimental results obtained with a 3-trailer laboratory-scale vehicle.