Anti-jackknife reverse tracking control of articulated vehicles in the presence of actuator saturation

It is well known that backward motion control of an articulated vehicle is difficult because it is an open loop unstable system and such motion is also dangerous due to ‘jackknifing’. In this paper, an anti-jackknife reverse tracking control strategy for autonomous articulated vehicles is proposed based on the combined longitudinal and lateral control scheme. In the proposed lateral-longitudinal control scheme, the major task is to control the reverse heading of the trailer by automatic steering strategies that observe both the anti-jackknife condition and input limitations. The main contribution of this paper is the development of globally asymptotic anti-jackknife stabilising and tracking controls of heading angles with both state and input constraints considered a priori. The proposed control inherently has an anti-windup mechanism that prevents the hitch angle from going beyond any specified critical value to avoid jackknifing, during which time, the steering angle remains at its limit. Stability of the controller is theoretically proven via the Lyapunov argument. Effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by CarSim and Simulink joint simulations.