Tracking control of a compact electrical vehicle trailer based on equivalent dynamics model

Recently trajectory control of a compact tractor-trailer using electrical vehicle is studied in industrial environment. There is three reasons. First, improvement of working efficiency is desired. Second, because an electrical vehicle can be controlled easily, utilization of electrical vehicle can be applied to a wide range of tasks. Third, the load transportation capacity is increased by using a compact tractor-trailer. However the conventional trajectory control of a tractor-trailer was based on kinematic model only. So it was applicable only in the environment where the cornering force and the friction don't exist. And it was difficult to adapt the tractor-trailer against the environment changes. In this paper, it composes a controller based on the environmental information. Specifically, it estimates a cornering force and friction and it changes speed and a steering angle based on it. Therefore, it can avoid the jackknife phenomenon which the tractor-truck is peculiar to. It uses PD controller for the controller. Finally, Numerical simulation results is shown.