Tractor Semi-trailer Modeling and Regional Path Tracking Control Strategy

Tractor semi-trailers play an important role in the freight transportation on highways, ports, factories and large logistics centers. A path tracking strategy with excellent performance can not only ensure the tractor semi-trailer safety but also improve the traffic efficiency and profitability of the transportation business. Due to the coupling articulated structure between the tractor and semi-trailer, the semi-trailer trajectory can only be controlled by adjusting the tractor control action, which makes the path tracking of tractor semi-trailer path tracking more difficult than passenger vehicles. Aiming at the problem of semi-trailer path tracking, a novel simplified kinematics and dynamics model of the tractor semi-trailer is established, which can reflect the basic kinematic and dynamic characteristics of tractor semi-trailer. Based on this model, an regional tractor semi-trailer path tracking strategy based on model predictive control(MPC) is presented in this paper, in which only front wheel angle of the tractor is needed to be optimized. Finally, the effectiveness of the controller is verified by the joint simulation of TruckSim and Simulink.