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An Autonomous Driving Control Strategy for Multi-trailer Articulated Heavy Vehicles with Enhanced Active Trailer Safety

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Advances in Dynamics of Vehicles on Roads and Tracks II (IAVSD 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering ((LNME))

Abstract

This article presents an autonomous driving control strategy for multi-trailer articulated heavy vehicles (MTAHVs). To design this strategy, a 5 degrees of freedom (DOF) yaw-plane model is generated to represent a MTAHV with the configuration of A-train double, and a nonlinear model predictive control (NLMPC) based controller is designed for direction and speed control of the MTAHV. Due to multi-unit structures, large sizes, and high centers of gravity (CGs), MTAHVs exhibit poor low-speed maneuverability and low high-speed lateral stability. Especially, MTAHVs often experience amplified lateral motions of trailing vehicle units in transient curved path negotiations. To enhance the safety performance of the autonomous driving control strategy, the self-driving A-train double design is featured with active trailer and dolly steering. To evaluate the effectiveness of the innovative autonomous driving control strategy, co-simulations are conducted by combining the integrated controller designed in MATLAB/ SIMULINK and a nonlinear A-train double model generated in TruckSim.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automotive and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON, Canada

    Amir Rahimi, Tarun Sharma & Yuping He

  2. National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Wei Huang

Authors
  1. Amir Rahimi
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  2. Wei Huang
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  3. Tarun Sharma
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  4. Yuping He
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amir Rahimi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Emperor Alexander I Saint-Petersburg State Transport University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Anna Orlova

  2. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    David Cole

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Rahimi, A., Huang, W., Sharma, T., He, Y. (2022). An Autonomous Driving Control Strategy for Multi-trailer Articulated Heavy Vehicles with Enhanced Active Trailer Safety. In: Orlova, A., Cole, D. (eds) Advances in Dynamics of Vehicles on Roads and Tracks II. IAVSD 2021. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07305-2_72

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07305-2_72

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-07304-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-07305-2

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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