To address the comfort and safety concerns related to driving vehicles, the
Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) is gaining huge popularity. The general
architecture of autonomous vehicles includes perception, planning, control, and
actuation. This article aims mainly at the controls aspect of one of the
emerging ADAS features Lane Centering System (LCS). Limitations in deploying
this feature from a controls point of view include maintaining the lane center
with winding curvatures, dealing with the dynamic environment, optimizing
controls where the perception of lane boundaries is erroneous, and, finally,
concurring with the driver’s preferences. Although some research is available on
LCS controls, most works are related only to the lateral controls by actuating
steering. To increase the robustness, a comprehensive control strategy that
involves lateral control, as well as longitudinal control along with a novel
strategy to select the mode of driving, is proposed. A geometric approach-based
Stanley controller is used as the lateral controller because of its simplicity
and robustness to disturbances. Two predictive controllers and one adaptive
longitudinal controller based on road curvature, road texture, and driver’s
aggressiveness are also deployed to cope with the dynamic behavior of the
environment and improve the driving experience. One proportional controller is
used for every predictive and adaptive controller. The performance and
robustness analysis is carried out using a model-based approach in a
MATLAB/Simulink simulation environment. The simulation results presented show
that the proposed control strategy can achieve its objective of following
complex tracks and maintaining comfort while keeping safety a priority.
