LPV-Based Autonomous Vehicle Lateral Controllers: A Comparative Analysis

This paper presents the design and experimental validation of grid-based and Linear Fractional Transformation (LFT) approaches for the lateral control of autonomous vehicles. These new methodological approaches are compared together with the classical polytopic approach from the theoretical design to the real implementation on a real automated Renault ZOE vehicle. A solution is proposed to deal with both lane change and lane tracking problems, using a single LPV controller, by adapting the look-ahead distance. Each LPV controller is designed based on LPV/ H∞ concept. Performance comparison includes computational costs, vehicle performance (i.e. lateral tracking error or control effort optimization) and on-board integration complexity. Simulation and experimental results on a private test track are included to support main findings.