Lateral control of autonomous vehicle for public urban mobility systems

Abstract

This paper deals with lateral dynamic control of electric vehicles in a urban environment, motivated by individual public transportation issues, aimed to reduce metropolitan areas pollution. The framework in which the control strategy is developed is the so-called "look-down reference", where the lateral displacement is obtained from a on-board sensor, interacting with a road infrastructure. In this framework, the designed control algorithm is made up of three nested closed loops with cascade compensators, where the outer one is nonlinear. Results from experimental tests performed on an actual circuit show the effectiveness of the considered control strategy.