Line following control of an autonomous truck-trailer

Abstract

This paper presents the line following control of a truck-trailer. The control architecture of the truck-trailer is also proposed. To cope with the autonomous application of the truck-trailer the kinematics of truck-trailer is derived and the mapping of the control actuators in the head-truck which are the steering angle and the traction to the posture of the trailer is conducted. The geometrical schematic between the truck trailer and the path to be followed is explored so that the error dynamics between the configuration of truck-trailer and the path are formulated. The path following control is designed based on the Lyapunov method and the global asymptotic stability of the origin of error variables is shown. Optimization of the control parameters is performed to include the constraints of the truck-trailer maneuver. Simulation results of a truck-trailer following rectangular-shaped path are conducted to show the efficiency of the proposed method.