Research on model predictive trajectory following control of automatic vehicle considering prediction error

Trajectory following control system is one of the key components of autonomous driving system. A nonlinear model predictive control scheme considering prediction error is proposed in this paper to regulate active front steering and enable an automatic vehicle to stably follow a predefined trajectory with good lateral stability and ride comfort at high velocity. A feedback compensation strategy is utilised to deal with the model mismatch existing between the controlled vehicle and the nominal model. Moreover, the effectiveness of the scheme is verified through the co-simulation between the software MATLAB/Simulink and Carsim. The results reveal that the proposed model predictive control with feedback compensation can effectively regulate the front steering angle and enhance the vehicle dynamics performance at high velocity. Copyright © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.