Application of An Optimal Vehicle Path Controller on Curved Roads after Collisions

Paper in proceeding, 2014

This paper considers the problem of vehicle path control directly after an initial light collision. Accident statistics have shown that 25% of all passenger car accidents have at least one vehicle exposed to subsequent collisions after the initial one. In previous research, an optimal path controller has been designed to minimize the collision risk in terms of the maximum lateral deviation from the original path on a straight road. The present paper further develops the controller for minimizing the maximum off-tracking on curved roads. A simple cost function which penalizes a combination of longitudinal and lateral terminal velocity is applied to approximate the original cost function, i.e. maximum off-tracking in curve. The weighting factor in the cost function is adaptable in connection with the prescribed road curvature and vehicle post-impact kinematics states. This cost function is found to be favourable for the closed-loop implementation of the optimal control. Results from numerical optimizations have shown the equivalence between the two different cost functions, and satisfactory performance of the closed-loop controller.