Cross-Track-Compensated Pure Pursuit Control of an Autonomous Vehicle on Low-Friction Surfaces

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-19-2021

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Abstract

In order for autonomous vehicles to be successfully integrated into the transportation system, they must be able to handle the variety of environments and driving scenarios that a human driver is able to. One such scenario is the use of a double lane change for obstacle avoidance with an unexpected change of friction coefficient present with below-freezing temperatures. A low-friction surface that is not detected by the vehicle could result in a vehicle running off the road during this maneuver. This article presents a modification to the commonly used pure pursuit control method that stabilizes the vehicle during this maneuver by dynamically changing the look-ahead distance based on cross-track error and vehicle velocity. Hardware results on an autonomous vehicle platform show an elimination of off-road occurrences for double lane change and a 46% reduction of off-road occurrences for single lane changes. The overall stability of the autonomous vehicle is also improved, decreasing oscillations around the planned path during maneuver execution.

Publication Title

SAE International Journal of Connected and Automated Vehicles

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