Nonlinear adaptive control of a two-vehicle autonomous convoy using a look-ahead approach

This paper proposes an adaptive tracking controller for a two-vehicle convoy. We consider autonomous vehicle following without any information obtained from road infrastructure or communicated from the lead vehicle. We assume that the lead vehicle linear and angular velocities, as well the curvature radius of the path traveled by the lead vehicle, are unknown constant parameters. The only information the robot vehicle can use for feedback control is the relative position and orientation with respect to the lead vehicle obtained from onboard sensing. The control velocities of the following vehicle are computed using the leader velocity estimates obtained from the dynamic (adaptive) part of the proposed controller. For constant velocity maneuvers of the leader, at steady state, the two-vehicle convoy will travel concentric arcs of same radii with prescribed inter-vehicle spacing. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.