Robust Path Tracking Control for Autonomous Vehicle Based on a Novel Fault Tolerant Adaptive Model Predictive Control Algorithm

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles are expected to completely change the development model of the transportation industry and bring great convenience to our lives. Autonomous vehicles need to constantly obtain the motion status information with on-board sensors in order to formulate reasonable motion control strategies. Therefore, abnormal sensor readings or vehicle sensor failures can cause devastating consequences and can lead to fatal vehicle accidents. Hence, research on the fault tolerant control method is critical for autonomous vehicles. In this paper, we develop a robust fault tolerant path tracking control algorithm through combining the adaptive model predictive control algorithm for lateral path tracking control, improved weight assignment method for multi-sensor data fusion and fault isolation, and novel federal Kalman filtering approach with two states chi-square detector and residual chi-square detector for detection and identification of sensor fault in autonomous vehicles. Our numerical simulation and experiment demonstrate that the developed approach can detect fault signals and identify their sources with high accuracy and sensitivity. In the double line change path tracking control experiment, when the sensors failure occurs, the proposed method shows better robustness and effectiveness than the traditional methods. It is foreseeable that this research will contribute to the development of safer and more intelligent autonomous driving system, which in turn will promote the industrial development of intelligent transportation system.