Optimal Control of the Vehicle Path Following by Using Image Processing Approach

Nowadays, the importance of the vehicles and its dramatic effects on transportation system is obvious. The use of trailers with multiple axels for transporting bulky and heavy equipment is essential. Stability and steerability of trailers with multiple axels and wheels is one of the main concerns in the transportation system. Therefore, in this paper dynamic modeling and control of a 5 axial trailer was studied. As well as to increase maneuverability and speed up, 3 axles was considered to be steered. Also, by using image processing trailer path following in desired path with the highest accuracy was achieved. In this study, first a 14 DoF model for a 5 axial trailer with 3 steering axles was considered and its dynamic was formulated. For this purpose, dynamic equations including kinematic and kinetic of trailer was obtained. Then, with evaluating trailers response, a linear quadratic optimal control algorithm was designed. In order to evaluate the performance of the control algorithm, control problem simulation for single lane change and overtaking was done. The results confirmed the performance of designed control algorithm and image processing accuracy in trailer path following.