Modeling and Nonlinear Adaptive Control for Autonomous Vehicle Overtaking

In this paper, we present a mathematical model and adaptive controller for an autonomous vehicle overtaking maneuver. We consider the problem of an autonomous three-phase overtaking without the use of any roadway marking scheme or intervehicle communication. The developed feedback controller requires information for the current relative intervehicle position and orientation, which are assumed to be available from onboard sensors. We apply standard robotic nomenclature for translational and rotational displacements and velocities and propose a general kinematic model of the vehicles and the relative intervehicle kinematics during the overtaking maneuver. The overtaking maneuver is investigated as a tracking problem with respect to desired polynomial virtual trajectories for every phase, which are generated in real time. An update control law for the automated overtaking vehicle is designed that allows tracking the desired trajectories in the presence of unknown velocity of the overtaken vehicle. Simulation results illustrate the performance of the proposed controller.