Assessing the maneuverability of tractor trailer systems in heavy goods transport

Abstract

In recent years strong efforts have been made for assistance and automation of heavy goods vehicles. The major efforts focus on driver and driving assistance systems for a broad scope of use cases. Minor efforts have been spent for autonomous driving of heavy goods vehicles. Here the scope of application is limited to non-public traffic, e.g. logistics centers and factory grounds. Also the degree of autonomy is limited, typically to the same level as for AGV's following predefined trajectories. However, extending autonomous driving to logistics centers and factory grounds comes along with a variety of new challenges. An important one is discussed here and regards the maneuverability of vehicles with a high degree of nonholonomy on narrow grounds. In doing this a quantifiable measure of maneuverability has to be defined and applied to comparable heavy goods vehicles.