Tube-based Guaranteed Cost Model Predictive Control Applied to Autonomous Driving Up to the Limits of Handling

• Main Authors: Massera, Carlos M, Santos, Tiago C. dos, Terra, Marco H, Wolf, Denis F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 09.12.2020
• Subjects: Computer Science - Systems and Control; Mathematics - Optimization and Control
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2012.05334

The development of control techniques to maintain vehicle stability under possible loss-of-control scenarios is essential to the safe deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in public scenarios. In this paper, we propose a tube-based guaranteed cost model predictive controller for autonomous vehicles able to avoid front and rear tire saturation and to track a provided reference trajectory up to the limits of handling of the vehicle. Such an approach ensures the vehicle will remain within its safe operational envelope; therefore, guaranteeing both stability and performance of the vehicle, including highly dynamic maneuvers that may be necessary for emergency conditions. We also propose a new conservative approximation of the nonlinear vehicle dynamics to a linear system subject to norm bounded multiplicative uncertainties and a new maximal robust controllable invariant set for vehicle dynamics. It consists of a larger feasible state-space region when compared to previously proposed invariant sets. Finally, we present both simulation and in-vehicle results of the performance of the proposed approach.