Vehicle lateral control for automated highway systems

This paper addresses the modeling and control of the lateral motion of a highway vehicle. In particular, a steering controller is designed that tracks the center of the present lane on both curved and straight highway sections without knowledge of the radius of curvature of the road. Also, it is shown that a lane change maneuver can be completed on a curved road section using this controller. The controller is designed using an H_∞-based loop shaping design procedure due to McFarlane and Glover. It is shown that this controller achieves the required performance as well as exhibiting excellent robustness. In particular, the controller´s robustness due to varying speeds, icy road conditions, and wind gusts are examined