Control Design and Assessment for a Reversing Tractor–Trailer System Using a Cascade Controller

Abstract

In recent years, control design for unmanned systems, especially a tractor–trailer system, has gained popularity among researchers. The emergence of such interest is caused by the potential reduction in cost and shortage of number of workers and labors. Two industries will benefit from the advancements of these types of systems: agriculture and cargo. By using the unmanned tractor–trailer system, harvesting and cultivating plants will become a safe and easy task. It will also cause a reduction in cost which in turn reduces the price on the end consumers. On the other hand, by using the unmanned tractor–trailer system in the cargo industry, shipping cost and time for the item delivery will be reduced. The work presented in this paper focuses on the development of a path tracking and a cascaded controller to control a tractor–trailer in reverse motion. The path tracking controller utilizes the Frenet–Serret frame to control the kinematics of the tractor–trailer system on a desired path, while the cascade controller’s main objective is to stabilize the system and to perform commands issued by the path tracker. The controlled parameters in this proposed design are the lateral distance to a path, trailer’s heading angel, articulated angel, and articulated angle’s rate. The main goal of such controller is to follow a path while the tractor–trailer system is moving in reverse and controlling the stability of the articulated vehicle to prevent the occurrence of a jackknife incident (uncontrolled state). The proposed controller has been tested in a different scenario where a successful implementation has been shown.