A Model Predictive Control Algorithm for Path Tracking Based on Multi-point Preview Dynamics and Safety Guaranteed Constraint

This paper presents an innovative path tracking method of model predictive control based on multi-point preview (MPP-MPC) that the original equation of state is augmented by considering a dynamics model of the multiple preview points. The path tracking issue is formulated as an optimal control problem with dynamic disturbance, i.e., the future road curvature. Hence, an ameliorative Kalman filter is adopted to fuse the information about camera and vehicle dynamics to accurately estimate the road curvature. To ensure lateral control performance, dynamic constraints are defined by the estimated road curvature to guarantee comfort and safety. In the control domain of model predictive control (MPC), the model can be approximated as a linear time-invariant model (LTIM) to reduce the computational complexity. The MPC problem can be transformed into a standard quadratic programming (QP) problem with dynamic constraints of guaranteed comfort and safety. Finally, the complex path tracking problem can be solved by the QP problem. Through lane keeping experiments, it is shown that the tracking accuracy and steering smoothness can be significantly improved by the proposed method.