Minimum Slip Collision Imminent Steering in Curved Roads Using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control

Previous work by the authors has introduced a collision imminent steering algorithm to autonomously steer a vehicle if an imminent collision cannot be avoided by braking alone. The original formulation was developed for straight roads. In this work, a new formulation is presented to account for curved roads, as well. To accommodate curved roads, a drivable tube is introduced, within which any trajectory is considered collision free. The optimal control problem is formulated to minimize the peak tire slip of the maneuver to seek a minimally aggressive solution. To ensure the safety of the vehicle in a potential maneuver, hard safety constraints on the vehicle stability and safe driving regions are enforced. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed formulation.