Composite Path Tracking Control for Tractor–Trailer Vehicles Via Constrained Model Predictive Control and Direct Adaptive Fuzzy Techniques

Tractor–trailer vehicles will suffer from nonholonomic constraint, uncertain disturbance, and various physical limits, when they perform path tracking maneuver autonomously. This paper presents a composite path tracking control strategy to tackle the various problems arising from not only vehicle kinematic but also dynamic levels via two powerful control techniques. The proposed composite control structure consists of a model predictive control (MPC)-based posture controller and a direct adaptive fuzzy-based dynamic controller, respectively. The former posture controller can make the underactuated trailer midpoint follow an arbitrary reference trajectory given by the earth-fixed frame, as well as satisfying various physical limits. Meanwhile, the latter dynamic controller enables the vehicle velocities to track the desired velocities produced by the former one, and the global asymptotical convergence of dynamic controller is strictly guaranteed in the sense of Lyapunov stability theorem. The simulation results illustrate that the presented control strategy can achieve a coordinated control effect for the sophisticated tractor–trailer vehicles, thereby enhancing their movement performance in complex environments.