Darrel Alan Recker

Design of Orientation Controllers for Backing-Up Maneuvers of Tractor-Trailer Vehicles in the Presence of Actuator Saturation

This paper presents a development of a robust steering controller that can be used for backing up maneuver of tractor-trailer vehicles. Tractor-trailer vehicles are naturally unstable when backing up maneuvers are performed. It is even more challenging for an inexperience driver to backing a trailer along a straight line since small errors in steering are amplified and the vehicle often departs from the desired path. Therefore it is desirable to develop a control system that can be used for such a scenario. In this paper, a robust controller is developed by using Lyapunov method based on a kinematic vehicle model for an application of tractor-trailer vehicles operating at a low speed in which state and input constraints are explicitly considered. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.© 2012 ASME