Design, implementation, and test of skid steering-based autonomous driving controller for a robotic vehicle with articulated suspension

This paper describes an autonomous driving control algorithm based on skid steering for a Robotic Vehicle with Articulated Suspension (RVAS). The driving control algorithm consisted of four parts: speed controller for following the desired speed, trajectory tracking controller to track the desired trajectory, longitudinal tire force distribution algorithm which determines the optimal desired longitudinal tire force and wheel torque controller which determines the wheel torque command at each wheel to keep the slip ratio below the limit value as well as to track the desired tire force. The longitudinal and vertical tire force estimators were designed for optimal tire force distribution and wheel slip control. The dynamic model of the RVAS is validated using vehicle test data. Simulation and vehicle tests were conducted in order to evaluate the proposed driving control algorithm. Based on the simulation and test results, the proposed driving controller was shown to produces satisfactory trajectory tracking performance.