Fuzzy Static Output Feedback Control for Path Following of Autonomous Vehicles With Transient Performance Improvements

• Published in: IEEE transactions on intelligent transportation systems Vol. 21; no. 7; pp. 3069 - 3079
• Main Authors: Nguyen, Anh-Tu, Sentouh, Chouki, Zhang, Hui, Popieul, Jean-Christophe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.07.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Acceleration; Automatic; Autonomous vehicles; Control design; Control stability; Curvature; D-stability; Design parameters; Engineering Sciences; Feedback control; Fuzzy control; fuzzy static output feedback control; Liapunov functions; Linear matrix inequalities; Lower bounds; Mathematical models; Output feedback; path following; Roads; Stability analysis; Traffic speed; Trajectory planning; Transient analysis; Transient performance; Unmanned ground vehicles; Vehicle dynamics; vehicle dynamics control; Vehicles; "Autonomous vehicles"; "Transient analysis"; "Output feedback"; "Vehicle dynamics"; "Roads"; "Control design"; "Stability analysis"
• ISSN: 1524-9050; 1558-0016
• DOI: 10.1109/TITS.2019.2924705

This paper provides a new solution for path following control of autonomous ground vehicles. <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mathcal {H}_{2} </tex-math></inline-formula> control problem is considered to attenuate the effect of the road curvature disturbance. To this end, we formulate a standard model from the road-vehicle dynamics, the a priori knowledge on the road curvature, and the path following specifications. This standard model is then represented in a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy form to deal with the time-varying nature of the vehicle speed. Based on a static output feedback scheme, the proposed method allows avoiding expensive vehicle sensors while keeping the simplest control structure for real-time implementation. The concept of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mathcal {D}- </tex-math></inline-formula>stability is exploited using Lyapunov stability arguments to improve the transient behaviors of the closed-loop vehicle system. In particular, the physical upper and lower bounds of the vehicle acceleration are explicitly considered in the design procedure via a parameter-dependent Lyapunov function to reduce drastically the design conservatism. The proposed <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mathcal {H}_{2} </tex-math></inline-formula> design conditions are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) with a single line search parameter. The effectiveness of the new path following control method is clearly demonstrated with both theoretical illustrations and hardware experiments under real-world driving situations.