Development of steering control system for autonomous vehicle using geometry-based path tracking algorithm

Abstract

In this paper, a steering control system for the path tracking of autonomous vehicles is described. The steering control system consists of a path tracker and primitive driver. The path tracker generates the desired steering angle by using the look-ahead distance, vehicle heading, and a lateral offset. A method for applying an autonomous vehicle to path tracking is an advanced pure pursuit method that can reduce cutting corners, which is a weakness of the pure pursuit method. The steering controller controls the steering actuator to follow the desired steering angle. A servo motor is installed to control the steering handle, and it can transmit the steering force using a belt and pulley. We designed a steering controller that is applied to a proportional integral differential controller. However, because of a dead band, the path tracking performance and stability of autonomous vehicles are reduced. To overcome the dead band, a dead band compensator was developed. As a result of the compensator, the path tracking performance and stability are improved.