Integrated Path Tracking Control of Autonomous Vehicles Incorporating Friction Coefficient Estimation

doi:10.3901/JME.2025.20.243

Abstract

Abstract: The integrated control of steering and differential braking is the key technology to improve the stability of autonomous vehicles in extreme conditions such as low friction and high speed. The road friction coefficient is a key parameter for vehicle dynamics modeling and control. To solve the problem that the existing steering and differential braking integrated path tracking control methods can not guarantee the control optimality and the unreasonable utilization of tire force, as well as the difficulties in estimating the road friction coefficient due to the strong nonlinearity and multiple constraints of the vehicle system, in this study, a one-layer steering and differential braking integrated path tracking control method considering the optimal utilization of tire force and a road friction coefficient estimation method based on nonlinear optimization is proposed, and an integrated path tracking control system for autonomous vehicles incorporating friction coefficient estimation is designed. The results of hardware-in-the-loop tests based on ROS, Simulink and CarSim show that the proposed steering and differential braking integrated path tracking control method dramatically improves the path tracking accuracy and stability of autonomous vehicles under extreme conditions; the proposed friction coefficient estimation method exhibits higher estimation accuracy and can provide reliable estimation results in closed-loop control in real-time.

Key words: autonomous vehicle, vehicle stability, chassis integrated control, path tracking control, friction coefficient estimation

CLC Number:

U461

WANG Guodong, LIU Li, MENG Yu, BAI Guoxing, WANG Jiaxuan, GU Qing. Integrated Path Tracking Control of Autonomous Vehicles Incorporating Friction Coefficient Estimation[J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2025, 61(20): 243-252.

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