A Fuzzy Super Twisting Sliding Mode Control Scheme for Velocity Regulation in Autonomous Vehicles

Velocity control is a key function of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Speed control, particularly in areas such as overtaking, platooning and change in lane, is critical in AV operations. In literature, however, there are various methods of cruise control, most of which suffer from the inability to manage nonlinearities and disturbances, their fixed gain characteristics and their chatter sensitivity. This research presents a sliding mode control scheme for speed control in AVs with the aim of addressing these limitations. The SMC's super twisting variant is implemented here to handle chattering while the controller gain is chosen adaptively using a fuzzy logic system. The results showed good velocity reference tracking performance, ensuring convergence of the error value to zero. This scheme can be implemented in AVs for effective velocity control operations.