Modeling, control and path planning for an articulated vehicle

Abstract: This licentiate thesis is focusing on the modeling, control and path planning problems for an articulated vehicle. Based on a novel error dynamics modeling approach, the nonlinear kinematic model of the vehicle has been transformed in a linear switching model representation, which is also able to take under consideration the effect of slip angles, a factor that significantly deteriorates the overall system approach.According to the proposed switching modeling, a switching model predictive control scheme has been established. Each of the controllers has been fine tuned for dealing with a specific model representation, translational speed, magnitude of slip angles and physical / mechanical constraints. In the proposed control scheme the varying slip angle and speed have been considered as the switching signal for selecting the active controller.The final contribution is related to the path planning problem where an on line path planning algorithm, being able to consider the full kinematic model of the vehicle, have been proposed.The presented algorithm is a variation of the well known Bug-like path planning scheme.The efficiencies of the presented approaches have been evaluated by multiple simulation results.