A variable look-ahead controller for lateral guidance of four wheeled vehicles

A variable look-ahead controller for the lateral guidance of vehicles for automated highway systems is proposed. The control objective is to make the lateral error at a certain point ahead of the vehicle zero. The distance of this point from the vehicle is called the look-ahead distance. An input-output linearization controller to achieve this objective is proposed. It is shown that the yaw internal dynamics can be damped at all longitudinal velocities if the look-ahead distance is a certain quadratic function of the longitudinal velocity.