Curvature-Based Geometric Approach for the Lateral Control of Autonomous Cars

Abstract

Several approaches exist for the lateral control of autonomous vehicles. Among them are the geometric approaches. They are shown to be robust to disturbances and able to manage complex tracks. Their main advantage lies on the fact that they are explainable, in the sense that their behavior can be analyzed to provide guarantees about their limitations. However, they do not give the quality of results that can be obtained using other control principles, mostly because of design issues. This paper aims to tackle these issues by proposing a novel geometric approach based on Frenet Serret formulas to reach the level of quality proposed by the other approaches, while still benefiting from the advantages of geometric approaches. A numerical analysis of the proposed control approach show its advantage: Simulation results and tests on a real autonomous car are provided.