Improving Sustainable Safe Transport via Automated Vehicle Control with Closed-Loop Matching

Abstract

The concept of vehicle automation is a promising approach to achieve sustainable transport systems, especially in an urban context. Automation requires the integration of learning-based approaches and methods in control theory. Through the integration, a high amount of information in automation can be incorporated. Thus, a sustainable operation, i.e., energy-efficient and safe motion with automated vehicles, can be achieved. Despite the advantages of integration with learning-based approaches, enhanced vehicle automation poses crucial safety challenges. In this paper, a novel closed-loop matching method for control-oriented purposes in the context of vehicle control systems is presented. The goal of the method is to match the nonlinear vehicle dynamics to the dynamics of a linear system in a predefined structure; thus, a control-oriented model is obtained. The matching is achieved by an additional control input from a neural network, which is designed based on the input–output signals of the nonlinear vehicle system. In this paper, the process of closed-loop matching, i.e., the dataset generation, the training, and the evaluation of the neural network, is proposed. The evaluation process of the neural network through data-driven reachability analysis and statistical performance analysis methods is carried out. The proposed method is applied to achieve the path following functionality, in which the nonlinearities of the lateral vehicle dynamics are handled. The effectiveness of the closed-loop matching and the designed control functionality through high fidelity CarMaker simulations is illustrated.