Robust Controller for Varying Speed Autonomous Ground Vehicles Considering System Uncertainties and Road Conditions

This paper presents a novel robust path-tracking controller for autonomous ground vehicles. Environmental and vehicle factors like variation in road conditions and varying speed can adversely affect autonomous ground vehicles' path-tracking capability. A polytopic linear parameter varying model for autonomous ground vehicle that accounts for system uncertainties with varying speeds and road conditions is formulated. Then, an <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$H$</tex> <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∞</inf>based robust path-tracking controller is developed using this model to minimise the vehicle's lateral velocity, heading error, and slip angle. Simulation results comparing the proposed controller with a conventional robust controller are presented. The findings show that the proposed controller performs well and is more effective than the conventional robust controller.