Improved Lateral Performance of a Long Combination Vehicle Based on Artificial Flow Guidance

Paper in proceeding, 2022

An active steering control strategy was formulated to improve the offtracking and high-speed stability of an autonomously driven long combination vehicle, a Nordic combination, which is formed of three units - a truck, a dolly, and a semitrailer. The controller, designed using a new Artificial Flow Guidance (AFG) method, was seen to significantly improve the lateral performance of the actively steered vehicle at a broad range of speeds. In comparison with the conventional vehicle where only the front axle of the truck is steered, and for the scenarios considered, the controller eliminated steady-state offtracking when all axles were allowed to steer. Stability was also improved, with rearward amplification (RWA) of the semitrailer reduced from 1.47 to 1.00. The effect of steering a reduced number of the axles was also considered and it was seen that for low-speed maneuvers, compared to the conventional vehicle, offtracking could be reduced by 72% when the rear axles of the semitrailer are actively steered. At higher speeds, actively steering the dolly axles alone is sufficient to supress the RWA from 1.47 to 1.02.