Event-Triggered Robust Path Tracking Control Considering Roll Stability Under Network-Induced Delays for Autonomous Vehicles

This paper proposes a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) method for path tracking control of autonomous vehicles under network-induced delays while taking into account the roll dynamics to improve both the driving safety and the passenger comfort. The steering control is directly applied to the front wheels, while the anti-roll moment is exerted by an active suspension. The asynchronous phenomenon caused by the sampling process and the time-varying vehicle speed are explicitly taken into account in the control design using a polytopic linear parameter-varying (LPV) control approach. Moreover, to avoid using costly vehicle sensors and complex control structures, a static output feedback (SOF) control scheme is considered. An effective event-triggering mechanism is also proposed to alleviate the communication burden of the vehicle networked control system. Based on augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, the control design conditions are derived to guarantee the vehicle closed-loop stability under the effects of transmission delays, event-triggered control signals and time-varying parameters. The design procedure is reformulated as an iterative optimization problem involving linear matrix inequality (LMI) constraints, which can be effectively solved with available numerical solvers. The proposed event-triggered SOF controller is evaluated with the vehicle dynamics simulation software CarSim under several dynamic scenarios. A comparative study with related vehicle control results is performance to emphasize the effectiveness of the control method in terms of path tracking performance, driving safety and comfort, and data communication efficiency of the vehicle networked control system.