Intelligent vehicle obstacle avoidance path-tracking control based on adaptive model predictive control

Abstract. In order to solve the problems of low path-tracking accuracy, poor safety, and stability of intelligent vehicles with variable speeds and obstacles on the road, a double-layer adaptive model predictive controller (MPC) is designed. A vehicle point mass model is used in an obstacle avoidance planning controller, and the safety collision distance model is established according to the distance relationship between the vehicle and the obstacle to improve the driving safety of the vehicle. The design of the path-tracking controller is based on the three-degrees-of-freedom dynamics model. According to the relationship between the predictive horizon and vehicle speed in the MPC algorithm, an adaptive path-tracking control strategy which can update the prediction horizon in real time is proposed to improve the accuracy of vehicle path tracking. To increase the vehicle stability, a sideslip angle and an acceleration control variable are added to the vehicle dynamics model as soft constraint conditions. The proposed method is simulated based on a CarSim and MATLAB/Simulink co-simulation platform. The simulation results show that the maximum lateral path deviation and the maximum centroid sideslip angle of the designed controller are 0.13 m and 0.4∘, respectively. Compared with the traditional MPC, the adaptive MPC maximum lateral path deviation and the maximum centroid sideslip angle are reduced by 0.51 m and 1.57∘, respectively, which proves the effectiveness of the proposed method.