Path-Following Steering Controller of Automated Lane Change System with Adaptive Preview Time

A path-following steering controller of automated lane change system with adaptive preview time is proposed in this paper. Model predictive control is employed to design the steering controller. A path geometry change (PGC) index is proposed to adjust the preview time of the controller. The PGC index is defined as the average of the absolute value of the double derivative of the target path in the prediction horizon. A cost function which consists of the lateral displacement errors between the target path and predicted path for lane change, and the steering angles within the prediction horizon is minimized to generate the optimal path-following steering angle command to perform the automated lane change control. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce the path-following error while reducing the lateral acceleration and jerk for a more comfortable lane change maneuver.