Path Tracking Methods Employed in Lane Centering Systems

In this paper, a simulation environment with lane detection system emulator has been developed in order to compare the performance of path tracking methods. Path tracking problem is handled in local coordinate frame employing the lane detection system emulator outputs. By performing this environment, a detailed and proper comparison of geometric and model based path tracking methods, mostly used in the literature, are executed with respect to different speeds and road curvatures. The performance results show that the compared path tracking methods do not work well enough for all the determined performance criteria and the methods have complementary features. These complementary features show that path tracking methods can be employed in a hybrid structure to achieve a generally better performance results for the speed range (0–130 [km/h]) where autonomous driving is enabled. In addition, the obtained simulation results reveal the necessity of adaptive adjustment of the gain parameters of the path tracking methods with respect to the road curvature and vehicle speed.