Abstract
In this paper, an adaptive steering controller for combination vehicles is proposed with using the wheel steering of semitrailer, the front and rear wheel steering of tractor without the measurement of lateral velocity of vehicle. The developed controller does not require any accurate knowledge of all vehicle parameters. The relative lateral position is measured and the controller is designed without using lateral velocity measurements. At first, we propose a new dynamic expression suitable for the design of a stable adaptive steering controller without using the lateral velocity. Next, we develop an ideal vehicle model as the reference vehicle model. In order to realize that the ideal vehicle model can have a good steering performance even when the drivers' steering characteristics vary, an evaluation function is introduced. Then, an ideal vehicle model is developed by using a trail and error approach so that the value of the evaluation function for the ideal vehicle model becomes smaller compared with that for the passive vehicle. At last, we develop an adaptive steering controller so that the behavior of the actual combined vehicle can track that of the ideal vehicle model. The effectiveness of the proposed steering controller is verified via computer simulations.
