A New Multi-objective Control Design for Autonomous Vehicles

In this chapter, a nonlinear control design is proposed for a team of wheeled mobile robots to cooperate in a dynamically evolving environment to track their virtual leader(s), while avoiding static and dynamic obstacles. Toward this end, a multi-objective control problem is formulated, and the control is synthesized by generating a potential field force for each objective and combining them through analysis and design. To the best Of Our knowledge, the proposed design is the first systematic approach to accommodate and achieve the multiple objectives of cooperative motion, tracking virtual command vehicle(s), obstacle avoidance, and oscillation suppression. Basic conditions and key properties are derived using rigorous Lyapunov analysis and theoretical proof. The results axe illustrated by several simulation examples including cooperative motion of a team of vehicles moving through urban settings with static and moving obstacles, as well as narrow passages.