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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Design and Comparison of Robust Nonlinear
Controllers for the Lateral Dynamics of
Intelligent Vehicles
Gilles Tagne, Reine Talj, and Ali Charara
Abstract—This paper focuses on the lateral control of intelligent
vehicles; the aim is to minimize the lateral displacement of the
autonomous vehicle with respect to a given reference trajectory.
The control input is the steering angle, and the output is the
lateral error displacement. We present here an analysis of com-
monality of three lateral nonlinear adaptive controllers. The first
controller is a higher order sliding-mode controller (SMC). The
second controller is based on the immersion and invariance (I&I)
principle. The design of this controller led us to prove a very strong
stability criterion of the closed-loop system for all controller gains
chosen to be positive. Thereafter, some interesting characteristics
of passivity of the systems were proved following this development.
Hence, the third controller is a passivity-based controller (PBC),
an adaptive PI controller based on the feedback of a passive
output. To validate our control laws, tests have been performed on
SCANeR Studio, a driving simulation engine, according to several
real driving scenarios. A comparison of these different controllers
is made to highlight the advantages and drawbacks of each control
approach in lateral tracking of a reference trajectory.
Index Terms—Lateral control, sliding mode control (SMC),
immersion and invariance (I&I) control, passivity-based con-
trol (PBC), reference tracking, autonomous vehicles, intelligent
vehicles.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A. Motivations and Problem Statement
S EVERAL contests such as the DARPA (Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency) Challenges in the USA (2004,
2005, and 2007); the Korean Autonomous Vehicle Competi-
tions (AVC) in Korea (2010, 2012, and 2013) and many others
have been organized worldwide to favor the development of
autonomous intelligent vehicles. The establishment of such ve-
hicles would give rise to various advantages that will diminish
road accidents. The objective is to provide an autonomous
system more reliable and faster to react than human drivers. It is
important to notice that the driver’s mistakes contribute entirely
Manuscript received March 11, 2015; revised July 28, 2015; accepted
September 24, 2015. This work was supported by the French Government and
carried out in the framework of Labex MS2T through the program Investments
for The Future managed by the National Agency for Research under Grant
ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02. The Associate Editor for this paper was J. E. Naranjo.
The authors are with Heudiasyc Laboratory, Sorbonne universités, Université
de technologie de Compiègne, CNRS, Heudiasyc UMR 7253, CS 60 319, 60
203 Compiègne, France (e-mail: gilles.tagne@hds.utc.fr).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TITS.2015.2486815
1524-9050 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
or partially to nearly 90% of road accidents. As result, various
research laboratories and firms are progressively stimulated by
the development of autonomous driving applications. Some
examples can be seen in [1]–[3]. This research field is in
expansion and one of the current major challenges is to warrant
a high speed autonomous driving.
An autonomous navigation can be completed in three manda-
tory steps: the perception and localization, the path planning
and the control. The vehicle control can be divided into two
tasks: longitudinal control and lateral control. The objective of
this paper is the lateral control of intelligent vehicles, which is a
very active research field that has been studied since the 1950s.
Lateral control consists on automatically maneuvering the
vehicle using the steering wheel to track the reference tra-
jectory. Considering the high non-linearity of the vehicle dy-
namics on one hand, and the uncertainties and disturbances
in automotive applications on the other hand, robustness can
be considered as a key issue in control design. The controller
should be able to reject disturbances and handle parameter’s
uncertainties and variations.
Lately, significant research has been carried out to provide
lateral guidance of autonomous vehicles. In the literature, sev-
eral control strategies have been developed. In [4] and [5], a
simple PID controller has been proposed. We also find a nested
controller in [6]. Furthermore, other classical approaches have
been used such as: state feedback [7]; Linear Quadratic (LQ)
approach [8]; H∞ control [9]; Lyapunov stability based control
[10]; adaptive control [11]; fuzzy logic control [12], [13]; fuzzy
Takagi-Sugeno LQ [14]; backstepping based approach [15] and
many others. Model Predictive Control (MPC) seems to be well
suited to the trajectory tracking [16], [17]. Nonetheless, the
computation time of nonlinear MPC is the main drawback of
this approach. In [18]–[21], Sliding Mode Control (SMC) has
been applied. This control strategy is known for its robustness
against uncertainties and its capacity to reject disturbances.
However, its main drawback is the chattering.
Some comparisons between existing controllers can be found
in the literature. In [22], a comparison is made between pro-
portional, adaptive, H∞ and fuzzy controllers. Snider also
presented and compared several path tracking methods which
where principally developed during the DARPA Challenges
[23]. More recently, in [24], the authors have compared two
emergency trajectory tracking controllers. In [25], continuous-
time and discrete-time switched H∞ controllers are compared.
As a conclusion, we can notice that it is difficult to make
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
an objective classification, but it is clear that different results
pointed out the adaptive controller’s class as a very promising
approach for such uncertain and non-linear application.
Over the years, extensive control strategies based on Sliding
Mode Control (SMC) method have been proposed to design
better and more reliable controllers for the lateral dynamics
of intelligent vehicles. The first-order SMC is used to control
the vehicle with small displacement error by compensating
the uncertainties and encountered disturbances [18]–[20]. It
also provides experimental results comparable to or better than
linear auto-tuning controllers. This control law also possesses
the advantage of being simple, compared to other more complex
approaches of robust control. The major drawbacks of the SMC
method are the following: 1) it needs a prior knowledge on the
maximum bounds of the disturbances and uncertainties, 2) it is
not robust outside the sliding surface, and 3) the chattering. The
chattering phenomenon often leads to undesirable results, for
example; high vibrations of moving mechanical parts and even
passengers discomfort [19]. For those reasons, it is necessary
to control and maintain the amplitude of oscillations at a low
level. Thus, [21] presented a higher-order SMC method to
alleviate the chattering. The super-twisting algorithm is used
to minimize the lateral displacement with respect to a given
reference trajectory for an autonomous vehicle. In the present
paper, we will remind the main lines of the development of this
controller for a better comparison with the proposed controllers.
B. Contributions
Given the implicit resemblance between SMC and the Im-
mersion and Invariance (I&I) principle for designing non-
linear and adaptive controllers, we develop a controller based
on the I&I approach in order to overcome the drawbacks of
SMC. A preliminary work related to the I&I controller design
was presented in [26]. To enhance the performances of this I&I
controller, in the present paper we use a different law of con-
vergence of the—off-the-manifold variable—z to bring up an
integral term in the control law so as to improve the robustness
with respect to parametric uncertainties and disturbances. An
analysis of commonality in mathematical frameworks is made;
both controllers had similar structures. Additionally, the study
of the I&I controller shows a very strong stability criterion
of the closed-loop system, for all controller gains chosen to
be positive. This strong result of stability led us to study the
intrinsic properties of passivity of the vehicle lateral dynamics.
Passivity is a concept that expresses a very interesting stabil-
ity property of some physical systems. Indeed, passive systems
are dynamical systems in which the energy exchanged is the
point of interest. Therefore, a passive system is not able to
store more energy than it has been supplied; this reflects a
strong intrinsic stability criterion. Passivity has been studied by
analyzing the frequency behavior of several input-output maps,
in order to determine the passive outputs. Then, passive outputs
can be used to provide robust stability and good performances
by the development of Passivity-Based Controllers (PBC). This
is particularly relevant in this application given the parametric
variations and uncertainties (speed, curvature, road friction
coefficient, etc...). Very recently, we studied the passivity of the
Fig. 1. Bicycle model.
lateral dynamics in the case of the road coefficient of friction
equal to one (μ = 1) [27]. In the present paper, we extend this
study by considering μ as a varying parameter.
The passivity of several input-output maps of the system
have been proved. We have shown that the sliding surface s
(SM C controller) that has been chosen equal to the—off-the-
manifold variable—z (I&I controller) is a passive output. To
maintain the same structure with respect to the two previously
developed ones, we propose as third controller, an adaptive PI
controller with non-linear gains based on the feedback of this
passive output. Finally, a comparison of the three mentioned
controllers is made to highlight the advantages and drawbacks
of each approach in lateral tracking of a reference trajectory.
To design the controllers, we consider that the vehicle is fitted
with sensors and/or observers to measure sideslip angle, yaw
rate, lateral error and its derivative. It is well known that, to
control the trajectory of an autonomous vehicle tracking using
only the lateral error is difficult [28]. Therefore, the use of
other dynamic variables in our control laws such as, the yaw
rate, the sideslip angle or the equivalent term helps to quickly
bring the operating point to the desired equilibrium thus facil-
itating the control. To validate the control strategies, we used
SCANeR Studio [29], a driving simulation engine.
C. Paper Structure
This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the
dynamic models of the vehicle and the control problem def-
inition. Section III presents the SMC design; and the design
of the I&I controller is presented in Section IV. Then, the
design of the PBC-PI controller is presented in Section V.
Section VI presents results. We conclude in Section VII, with
some remarks and prospects.
II. V EHICLE DYNAMIC M ODELS AND C ONTROL
P ROBLEM D EFINITION
A. Vehicle Dynamic Models
To design the controllers, a simple and widely used dynamic
bicycle model [7] is considered (see Fig. 1). This model is used
to represent the lateral vehicle behavior (lateral acceleration
ay , yaw rate ψ̇, sideslip angle β) and assumes that the vehicle
is symmetrical, and tire sideslip angles on the same axle are
equal. The roll and pitch dynamics are neglected and angles
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TAGNE et al.: ROBUST NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR LATERAL DYNAMICS OF INTELLIGENT VEHICLES 3

TABLE I where,
V EHICLE PARAMETERS AND N OMENCLATURE (B ICYCLE M ODEL )
⎡ μ(Cf + Cr ) μ(L C −L C )
⎤
− −1 − f f r r
0 0
⎢
mVx  2 mV2x2  ⎥
⎢ μ(Lf Cf −Lr Cr ) μ L Cf +Lr Cr ⎥
A=⎢− − f
0 0⎥
⎢ Iz Iz Vx
μ(L Cf −Lr Cr ) ⎥
⎣ − μ(Cf + Cr ) − f mV 0 0⎦
m x
0 0 1 0
⎡ μCf ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
mVx 0
⎢ μLf Cf ⎥ ⎢ 0 ⎥
⎢ Iz ⎥
B1 = ⎢ ⎥ B2 = ⎢ ⎥
⎣−Vx2 ⎦ . (5)
⎣ μCf ⎦
m 0
0

are assumed to be small (steering δ, sideslip β, yaw ψ). With The control input is the steering angle δ̃ and the output is
a linear tire force model we obtain a linear parameter varying the lateral error displacement e. The lateral control aims to
(LPV) model, where the longitudinal velocity Vx is considered eliminate the lateral error. Then, for a given curvature ρ and
as a varying parameter. Dynamic equations in terms of slip longitudinal velocity Vx , the desired behavior corresponds to
angle and yaw rate of the bicycle model are given by: ė = e = 0. Hence, it is easy to prove that the desired equilib-
⎧   rium point is [7]:
⎨β̇ = − μ(Cf +Cr ) β − 1 + μ(Lf Cf −L r Cr ) μC
ψ̇+ mVfx δ
 2 x 2 
mVx mV 2

⎩ μ(L C −L C ) μ L Cf +Lr Cr μL C (β, ψ̇, ė, e) = (β  , ψ̇  , 0, 0)

ψ̈ = − f fIz r r β − f
Iz Vx ψ̇ + Ifz f δ
(1) with
where β and ψ represent respectively the sideslip angle and the  
Lf mVx2
yaw angle of the vehicle. Table I presents vehicle parameters β = Lr − ρ
and nomenclature. Note that the cornering stiffness values of μCr (Lf + Lr )
the dynamic bicycle model (Table I) are twice the value of a ψ̇  = Vx ρ. (6)
data sheet since the two tires are being treated as one. For more
details on the model and parameters see [23] or [18]. To validate At the equilibrium point, the control input is:
in simulation the proposed controllers, we used SCANeR studio
simulator [29]. This simulator represents the vehicle with its mVx2 (Lr Cr − Lf Cf )
δ  = (Lf + Lr )ρ + ρ. (7)
full dynamical model. μCf Cr (Lf + Lr )

We define the new error variables:

B. Control Problem Definition ⎧
⎨β̃ = β − β
⎪ 
The lateral control’s aim is to minimize the lateral dis-
ψ̃˙ = ψ̇ − ψ̇  (8)
placement of the autonomous vehicle with respect to a given ⎪
⎩
reference path. The lateral error dynamics at the centre of δ̃ = δ − δ  .
gravity of the vehicle, with respect to a reference path, is
given by: Note that the desired reference state (Equations (6), (7)) is the
steady-state solution to the bicycle model. Hence, using this as
ë = ay − ayref (2) a reference input (Equation (8)) can ignore the natural transient
dynamics of the model.
where ay and ayref represent respectively the lateral accelera- The error dynamics of the system (4) whose origin is the
tion of the vehicle and the desired lateral acceleration along the ˙
equilibrium point (β̃, ψ̃, ė, e) = (0, 0, 0, 0) become:
reference trajectory. Assuming that the desired lateral acceler-
ation of the vehicle can be written as ayref = Vx2 ρ; where ρ is x̃˙ = Ax̃ + B1 δ̃ (9)
the curvature of the road which we assume constant. Given that
ay = Vx (β̇ + ψ̇) [7], then: where A and B1 have been defined above in (5).
ë = Vx (β̇ + ψ̇) − Vx 2 ρ. (3)
III. SMC C ONTROLLER D ESIGN
Adding the equation of the lateral error dynamics (3) in
the system (1), the new system state variables become x = The Sliding Mode Control (SMC) has been developed since
(β, ψ̇, ė, e) , corresponding to the sideslip angle β, the yaw rate 1950s and is recognized as one of the most promising tech-
ψ̇, the lateral error e and its derivative ė. The system dynamics niques for robust control. The principle of SMC is to constrain
can be written as follows: the system trajectories to reach and remain on a sliding surface
in finite time. However, its main drawback is the chattering.
ẋ = Ax + B1 δ + B2 ρ (4) In this subsection, we recall the main lines of the design of
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

the SMC controller. We used the super-twisting algorithm to case of a more wide class of adaptive non-linear controllers,
minimize the lateral displacement. For more details, see [21]. known by the principle of “Immersion and Invariance.”
The objective is to cancel the lateral displacement error. To
this end, choosing the sliding variable s as follows,
IV. I&I C ONTROLLER D ESIGN
s = ė + λe (10) The Immersion & Invariance (I&I) principle is a relatively
new method for designing non-linear and adaptive controllers.
with λ a positive constant, we obtain ṡ = ë + λė. Replacing ë
The idea consists on achieving the control objective by immers-
by its expression (3), we obtain:
ing the system into a target dynamics that ensures the objective
μ(Cf +Cr ) μ(Lf Cf −Lr Cr ) μCf of the command. Indeed, as mentioned before, the SMC is a
ṡ = − β− ψ̇−Vx2 ρ+ δ+λė. particular case of the I&I method where the sliding surface is
m mVx m
(11) the target dynamics and the law of convergence towards this
The variable s has a relative degree r = 1 with respect to the latter may be discontinuous (and in finite time).
input δ. We can write ṡ of the form: To design the I&I controller, some assumptions should
be verified: the system and the target dynamics should both
ṡ(t, s) = φ(t, s) + ϕ(t, s)δ (12) have their equilibrium at the origin. The immersion of the
system is achieved by rendering the manifold attractive and
with,
invariant. Therefore, the command consists on bringing all the

μ(C +C ) μ(Lf Cf −Lr Cr ) system state trajectories towards the manifold. Astolfi et al. [30]
φ(t, s) = − fm r β − mVx ψ̇ − Vx2 ρ + λė
μCf present the main stabilization principle of the Immersion and
ϕ(t, s) = m .
Invariance method.
(13) Considering the vehicle lateral dynamics model (9), the main
It is assumed that there exist positive constants s0 , bmin , bmax , objective of the steering controller is to eliminate the lateral
C0 such that ∀ x ∈ Rn and |s(t, x)| < s0 , the system satisfies error displacement with respect to a given trajectory, so that
the following conditions: e = ė = 0 at the equilibrium. The target system is consequently
⎧
⎪ chosen to be the image of the system (9) when e = ė = 0. More
⎨|δ| ≤ δmax
precisely, the target state vector is (ξ1 , ξ2 ), where ξ1 and ξ2
0 < bmin ≤ |ϕ(t, s)| ≤ bmax (14)
⎪
⎩ represent β̃ and ψ̃˙ respectively, when e = ė = 0. Note that for
|φ(t, s)| < C0 .
e = ė = 0, we also have ë = 0. With ë = 0, the control input of
So, the SMC control based on super-twisting algorithm is the system (9) is
given by: Cf + Cr Lf Cf − Lr Cr ˙
 1
δ̃0 =
Cf
β̃ +
Cf Vx
ψ̃. (19)
δ1 = −α1 |s| 2 sign(s)
δST = δ1 + δ2 (15)
δ̇2 = −α2 sign(s) Hence, the target dynamics can be expressed as follows,
    
with α1 and α2 positive constants. The finite time convergence ξ˙1 0 −1 ξ1
= μCr (Lf +Lr ) μLr Cr (Lf +Lr ) . (20)
to the sliding surface is guaranteed for all: ξ˙2 I − I V
ξ2
⎧ z z x

⎨α2 > C0

bmin This target dynamics is quite simply the dynamics of the
(16)
⎩α1 ≥ 4C 0 (bmax α2 +C0 )
. sideslip angle and yaw rate. It is stable and has been studied
b2 (bmin α2 −C0 )
min
in the literature [31]. With this new formulation, the target
To avoid important peaks in transient phases, we add an equiva- dynamic can be expressed directly as a function of the set point
lent command δeq obtained by solving the equation ṡ = 0. This ρ (reference curvature) as input. These dynamics are given by
term has the role of a feedforward that brings the system near the following equation:
to the sliding surface, and is given by:       
β̇ 0 −1 β Vx
= μCr (Lf +Lr ) + Lf mVx2 ρ
Cf + Cr Lf Cf − Lr Cr mVx2 mλ ψ̈
μL C (L +L )
− r Irz Vxf r ψ̇
δeq = β+ ψ̇ + ρ− ė. Iz Iz
Cf Cf Vx μCf μCf (21)
(17)
where, for a given curvature ρ, β, and ψ̇ converge respectively
Hence, the steering angle representing the control input of the
to β  and ψ̇  .
system is defined as follows:
Proposition 1: The target model (20) has a globally asymp-
δSMC = δST + δeq . (18) totically stable equilibrium at the origin (0, 0).
Proof 1: The dynamics of the state vector ξ = [ξ1 , ξ2 ] can
The sliding mode is a kind of non-linear PI control that forces be written in the form ξ˙ = Cξ, with
the state trajectories of the system towards a sliding surface,  
rendered invariant by the use of discontinuous “sign” functions. 0 −1
C = μCr (Lf +Lr ) μL C (L +L ) . (22)
Hence, the principle of the sliding mode control is a particular Iz − r Irz Vxf r
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TAGNE et al.: ROBUST NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR LATERAL DYNAMICS OF INTELLIGENT VEHICLES 5

Then, after some simple calculations, we obtain: The subsystem S2 combines and represents the interactions
between the dynamics of the two off-the-manifold variables z
μLr Cr (Lf + Lr ) μCr (Lf + Lr )
det(sI − C) = s2 + s+ . and e. This lateral error dynamics in closed-loop (S2 ) does not
Iz Vx Iz ˙ it is given by :
(23) depend on the variables β̃ and ψ̃,
For any uncertainties and variations encountered, the model’s t
parameters (Cf , Cr , Lf , Lr , Iz , μ) are always positive. The ë = −(K1 + λ)ė − (K1 λ + K2 )e − K2 λ e dt. (28)
matrix C satisfies the Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion (Vx > 0), 0
which leads to the desired result.
Proposition 2: Consider the system (9) whose equilibrium Proposition 3: The subsystem S2 has a globally asymptoti-
point is at the origin. Moreover, the subsystem (20), which cally stable equilibrium at the origin.
is the image of the system (9) for e = ė = 0, has a globally Proof 3: The dynamics of the subsystem S2 have the
asymptotically stable equilibrium at the origin. The system (9) characteristic equation:
is I&I-stabilizable with target dynamics (20).
Proof 2: We now define the off-the-manifold variable P (s) = s3 + (K1 + λ)s2 + (K1 λ + K2 )s + K2 λ. (29)

z = ė + λe, s.t. λ > 0. (24) This equation satisfies the Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion
for all the gains K1 > 0, K2 > 0 and λ > 0, and hence the
Note that we choose z = s, the sliding variable defined above attractivity of manifold is ensured.
for the design of the SMC controller. Finally it is clear that when S2 converges to zero, the input ũ
We have to select a control input δ̃ such that the trajectories of the subsystem S1 (27) converges to zero. The system then
of the closed-loop system remain bounded and z converges to converges to the target subsystem, whose dynamics (20) are
zero. It should be noticed that when z → 0, e converges to zero, stable and converge to (0, 0). We have already proved above
yielding to the desired result. that this target dynamics have a globally asymptotically stable
As a way of addressing this problem, in [26], we have equilibrium at the origin (0, 0). Consequently, the trajectories of
imposed an exponential convergence of z (we used ż = −Kz, the closed-loop system are bounded, they immerse into the tar-
with K > 0). In the present paper, we added an integral term get dynamics inside the invariant manifold, and then converge
that changes the asymptotic convergence behavior of the control to the desired equilibrium, yielding to the desired result. For
law, so as to improve the robustness with respect to parametric more details on the proof of global asymptotic stability of the
uncertainties and disturbances. To this end, we define a stable closed-loop system, see [32], where it is shown that the cascade
dynamics for z such that: interconnection of Global Asymptotic Stable (GAS) systems
with a bounded trajectory gives a globally asymptotically stable
t
system.
ż + K1 z + K2 z dt = 0, with K1 > 0, K2 > 0. (25) The proposed I&I controller guarantees the stability of the
0 system, for all its gains λ > 0, K1 > 0 and K2 > 0. This is a
The off-the-manifold variable z converges to 0, then e and very strong result that reveals some interesting characteristics
ė converge to 0. The system is thus immersed into the target of the system. The parameters K1 > 0, K2 > 0 and λ have to
dynamics, where it converges to the origin. be chosen based on other practical considerations related to the
Replacing z by its expression (24) in the equation (25), system performance and transient behavior. Finally, the control
and after some calculations, the corresponding control input is input applied to the system (4) is:
given by:
m(K1 + λ) m(K1 λ + K2 ) mK2 λ
δI&I = δ̃ + δ  = − ė− e−
t μCf μCf μCf
m(K1 + λ) m(K1 λ + K2 ) mK2 λ
δ̃ = − ė − e− e dt t
μCf μCf μCf Cf + Cr Lf Cf − Lr Cr mVx2
0 × e dt + β+ ψ̇ + ρ. (30)
Cf Cf Vx μCf
Cf + Cr Lf Cf − Lr Cr ˙ 0
+ β̃ + ψ̃. (26)
Cf Cf Vx
The I&I formulation assumes the exact knowledge of the
t model parameters. However, the controller is designed to deal
Defining ũ = (K1 + λ)ė + (K1 λ + K2 )e + K2 λ 0 e dt, the
with some model errors. The structure of the proposed con-
˙
dynamics of β̃ and ψ̃ in closed-loop become: troller guarantees the convergence to the neighborhood of the
      desired state, even though the model presents some weaknesses
˙ β̃ − V1x
β̃ to represent the system in some regions. The control law can be
¨ = C ψ̃˙ + − Lf m ũ. (27)
ψ̃ Iz interpreted as a dynamic state feedback controller plus a PID
controller (with gains depending on system parameters), for
The closed-loop system can be interpreted as the intercon- robustness. The dynamic state feedback provides compensation
˙
nection of two subsystems: S1 with the state variables β̃ and ψ̃, of some system dynamics, in order to rapidly converge to a
and S2 with the state variables ė, e and the integral of e( e). neighborhood of the desired state. On the other hand, the PID
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Fig. 2. Feedback interconnection of passive systems scheme.
controller helps to ensure local convergence and to reject the
effect of uncertainties and / or disturbances. This control law
is very close to the SMC control law (the equivalent term).
The difference being at the level of the robust term which is
an adaptive PID for the I&I and a nonlinear PI for the SMC.
V. PASSIVITY-BASED C ONTROLLER D ESIGN
A. Passivity-Based Control Method
As mentioned before, the strong stability result obtained with
the I&I controller for all positive gains, led us to study the
intrinsic characteristics of the system. Indeed, this study reveals
the presence of several input-output passive maps in the system,
which is a very interesting and promising result that allows us
to design Passivity-Based Controllers suitable to improve the
robustness of such uncertain non-linear system.
The Passivity-Based Control (PBC) was introduced in 1989
to define a control methodology that aims to make the closed-
loop system (system + controller) passive [33]. These passivity
properties guarantee the stability and robustness of the closed-
loop system. Two approaches are used in the literature to design
PBC controllers:
• Controller design, choosing an appropriate energy func-
tion which will guarantee the passivity of the closed-loop
system (so that the closed-loop system is made passive by
the command) [33].
• Controller design, based on the passivity properties of
the system as well as the interconnection of passive
systems [34].
The interconnection of passive systems has been studied
in the literature, particularly the re-looping and cascading.
The following corollary (corollary 4.1 in [34]) reminds a
very useful property of stability of two systems on feedback
interconnections.
Corollary 1: Considering the diagram of Fig. 2, this feedback
system with finite gains is stable if either of the following
statements is true:
• S1 is Passive (P) and S2 is Strictly Passive (SP).
• S1 is Strictly Passive (SP) and S2 is Passive (P).
Corollary 2: Considering the diagram of Fig. 3, the system
resulting from this cascade interconnection is passive if one of
the following statements is true (satisfied):
• S1 is Passive (P) and S2 is Strictly Passive (SP).
• S1 is Strictly Passive (SP) and S2 is Passive (P).
Fig. 3. Cascade interconnection of two passive systems.
B. Passivity Analysis of the Lateral Error Dynamics
Theory of passivity is a framework for analyzing physical
systems and designing controllers using a description of the
input-output relationship based on energy considerations. The
Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov (KYP) lemma is considered to be
one of the pillars for control and systems theory. To demonstrate
the passivity of an output, this lemma is considered. It estab-
lishes an equivalence between the conditions in the frequency
domain (positive realness of a system), in the time domain (an
input-output relationship of the system), and in the state-space
representation where conditions on the matrices describing the
system should be verified. The Lemma is given as follows:
Lemma 1: (KYP lemma) [34]
In the frequency domain: Consider the transfer function
H(s) and the operator returning the real part (). H(s) is
Positive Real (PR) if and only if:

H(s) is stable
(31)
[H(jω)] ≥ 0, ∀ ω ∈ R.
In the time domain: A system with input u and output y,
where u(t), y(t) ∈ Rm , is passive if there is a positive constant
υ such that
T
y T (t)u(t) dt ≥ υ (32)
0
for all function u and all T ≥ 0.
In the state-space representation: Let us consider a sys-
tem described by the following state-space representation: ẋ =
Ax + Bu and y = Cx + Du, where x ∈ Rn , u, y ∈ Rm with
n ≥ m. The transfer function H(s) = C(sI − A)−1 B + D,
with A ∈ Rn×n , B ∈ Rn×m , C ∈ Rm×n , D ∈ Rm×m is PR
with H(s) ∈ Rm×m , if and only if there exists matrices P > 0,
P ∈ Rn×n , L ∈ Rn×m and W ∈ Rm×m such that:
⎧
⎪
⎨P A + A P = −LL
T T
P B − C = −LW
T (33)
⎪
⎩ T T
D + D = W W.
Remark: In view of the above conditions, it is clear that
unstable systems and non-minimum phase systems are not
positive real.
We will analyze the passivity properties of the lateral error
dynamics (ë, ė and z) with respect to the steering input δ̃.
1) Passivity of the map δ̃ → ë:
Proposition 4: The map δ̃ → ë is Strongly Strictly Passive
for a road coefficient of friction μ = 1.
Proof 4: The proof of strong strict passivity is established
showing that the transfer function H00 (s) of the map δ̃ → ë is
Strongly Strictly Positive Real (SSPR).
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TAGNE et al.: ROBUST NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR LATERAL DYNAMICS OF INTELLIGENT VEHICLES 7

Assume that the road coefficient of friction μ = 1. Consider- this second term is positive, implying that f is always positive
ing the error dynamic equations (9), after some calculations, (which is the case of most commercial vehicles). For oversteer
one can find that the transfer function H00 (s) between δ̃ as vehicles, f can theoretically be negative in case the vehicle has
input and ë as output is given by: atypical parameters (extremely large speed or mass). In this
work, we assume that f is positive, which is usually the case
ë(s) a0 s2 + b 0 s + c0
H00 (s) = = (34) for the conventional cars.
δ̃(s) s2 + d0 s + f0 According to the criterion of Routh-Hurwitz, zeros and poles
of H0 (s) are strictly stable, so H0 (s) is minimum phase and
where,
Hurwitz.
⎧ C
⎪ a = f Setting s = jω, the frequency response function becomes
⎪
⎪ 0 Lmr Cf Cr (Lf +Lr )
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪b0 = −aω 2 + bjω + c RN 0 + jIN 0
⎪
⎪
mIz Vx
H0 (jω) = = (39)
⎪ C C (L +L )
⎪c0 = f rmIfz r −ω 2 + djω + f
⎪
⎨  RD + jID
(Cf +Cr ) L2 Cf +L2r Cr
d0 = mV + f
(35) where RN 0 , IN 0 , RD , and ID are the real and imaginary parts
⎪
⎪ x Iz Vx
⎪
⎪ Cf Cr (Lf +Lr )2
of the numerator and the denominator respectively, given by:
⎪ 1
⎪ f = mIz Vx2
⎪
⎪
⎪f2 = (Lr Cr −Lf Cf )
⎪
⎪
⎪ Iz RN 0 = c − aω 2 , IN 0 = b ω
⎩ C Cr (Lf +Lr )2 (L C −L C )
f0 = f mI zV
2 + r rIz f f = f1 + f2 .
x
RD = f − ω , 2
ID = dω.
The transfer function H00 (s) has a relative degree equal to 0.
According to the KYP Lemma applied in the frequency domain, Hence,
we have shown that the transfer function has a positive real part RN 0 RD + IN 0 ID
for a road coefficient of friction μ = 1 (see [27]). [H0 (jω)] = 2 + I2 . (40)
RD D
We extend this study by considering μ as a varying
parameter. Knowing that RD2 2
+ ID > 0, [H0 (jω)] is positive if and only
Proposition 5: The map δ̃ → ë is Strongly Strictly Passive if RN 0 RD + IN 0 ID > 0.
for all μ > μ0 .
Proof 5: The proof of strong strict passivity is established RN 0 RD + IN 0 ID = aω 4 + (bd − af − c)ω 2 + cf. (41)
showing that the transfer function H0 (s) of the map δ̃ → ë is
Strongly Strictly Positive Real (SSPR). The transfer function Given the order of magnitude of the parameters mentioned
H0 (s) between δ̃ as input and ë as output for all μ
= 1 is above and whatever is Vx > 0, one can find that:
given by: ⎧
⎪
⎨a > 0
ë(s) as2 + bs + c
H0 (s) = = 2 (36) cf > 0 (42)
δ̃(s) s + ds + f ⎪
⎩
bd − af − c is not always positive.
where,
⎧ Given that (bd − af − c) is not always positive, let x = ω 2 ,
⎪
⎪
μC
a = mf = μa0 hence
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ μ2 Lr Cf Cr (Lf +Lr )
⎪
⎪b= = μ2 b 0
⎪
⎨ 2
mIz Vx RN 0 RD + IN 0 ID = f (x) = ax2 + (bd−af −c)x + cf. (43)
μ Cf Cr (Lf +Lr )
c= = μ2 c 0 (37)
⎪
⎪
mIz   The derivative of this function is zero for
⎪
⎪ μ L2 Cf +L2r Cr
⎪
⎪d =
μ(Cf +Cr )
+ f
= μd0
⎪
⎪ mVx Iz Vx
bd − af − c
⎪
⎩f = μ2
C C (L +L ) 2
μ(L C −L C ) x0 = .
f r f
mIz V 2
r
+ r rIz f f = μ2 f1 +μf2 . −2a
x

The transfer function H0 (s) has a relative degree equal to 0. So, the unique extremum of the function is
Consequently, according to the KYP Lemma applied in the fre-
(bd − af − c)2
quency domain, the proof of SSPR is tantamount to verifying: f (x0 ) = + cf. (44)
−4a
[H0 (jω)] ≥ ζ > 0, ∀ ω ∈ (−∞, +∞). (38)
Given that
Whatever the uncertainties and variations encountered, the
model parameters (Cf , Cr , Lf , Lr , m, Iz , and μ) are always lim [H0 (jω)] = a > 0 (45)
ω→∞
positive. Thus, the coefficients a, b, c, d of H0 (s) are always c
positive. Considering the expression of f , it can be positive lim [H0 (jω)] = >0 (46)
ω→0 f
or negative. In fact, the second term of f (f2 ) can be positive
or negative depending on the type of vehicle steering system it is sufficient to have f (x0 ) > 0 in order to prove that the
(understeer or oversteer). In the case of understeer vehicles, transfer function H0 is strongly strictly positive real.
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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

TABLE II
C OEFFICIENT OF M AXIMUM A DHESION μ FOR
D IFFERENT PAVEMENT C ONDITIONS

Fig. 5. Transfer function Hz (s) of the map δ̃ → z.

Strict passivity of H0 guarantees that,

T
ë(t)δ̃(t)dt > 0 for all T. (51)
0

Also, it is easy to show that:

Fig. 4. Cascade connection scheme. T

1
ė(t)ë(t)dt ≥ − ė(0)2 = υ. (52)
2
0
To have f (x0 ) > 0 in the equation (44), this is equivalent
to have : Finally, we have:
T
4c0 a0 f1 μ3 + 4c0 a0 f2 μ2 + (b0 d0 − a0 f1 )μ − af2 − c0 > 0. ė(t)δ̃(t)dt ≥ υ. (53)
(47) 0

This inequality shows clearly that the passivity of the lateral
error depends on the road coefficient of friction μ.
In [27], we have shown that for μ = 1, f (x0 ) > 0. The
Equation (47) clearly shows that when μ → 0, f (x0 ) < 0. In
addition, f (x0 (μ)) is an increasing continuous function of μ.
Thus there exist a μ0 such that f (x0 (μ0 )) = 0.
Thus, we have shown that ∀ μ > μ0 defined above:
[H0 (jω)] ≥ ζ > 0, ∀ ω ∈ (−∞, +∞).
To have an idea on the order of magnitude of μ0 , we
considered the parameters of the vehicle of the Table I for
a longitudinal velocity of Vx = 40 m/s, then we obtain μ0  Hence, the transfer function Hz (s) between δ̃ and z can be
0.012. Table II provides a list of values of μ for different
pavement conditions [35].
It is important to note that the value of μ0 is relatively
low, corresponding to a very icy pavement. In other words, for
driving on dry pavement, wet or snowy, the transfer function
H0 (s) is strongly strictly passive.
2) Passivity of the map δ̃ → ė:
Proposition 6: The map δ̃ → ė is Passive (P) for all μ > μ0 .
Proof 6: The transfer function H1 (s) of the output ė with
respect to the input δ̃ is given by:
1
H1 (s) = H0 (s).
s developed different control approaches based on the variable
The transfer function H1 (s) is a cascade connection of an in-
tegrator with the strongly strictly positive real transfer function
H0 (s) for all μ > μ0 . (see Fig. 4).
Considering the scheme of the Fig. 4, we have,
T T T
ė(t)δ̃(t)dt = ë(t)δ̃(t)dt + ė(t)ë(t)dt.
0 0 0 (P) for a steering input δ̃ for all μ > μ0 .
The map δ̃ → ė is passive, what is the desired result. For more
details see [34].
3) Passivity of the map δ̃ → z:
Proposition 7: Consider an output defined by:
z = s = ė + λe. (54)
The map δ̃ → z is Passive.
Proof 7: The proof of the passivity of z is established
(48) by showing that it is a cascade interconnection of two sys-
tems respectively passive S1 and strictly passive S2 (see the
Corollary 2).
Consider H1 (s) the transfer function between δ̃ and ė.
given by the Fig. 5.
We have shown that S1 = H1 is passive (see Proposition 6).
s+λ
S2 (s) =
s
S2 defines a Strictly Passive (SP) map; it is easy to show
that [34]:
[S2 (jω)] ≥  > 0, ∀ ω ∈ (−∞, +∞).
So the map δ̃ → z is passive, what yields to the desired result.
This result partially explains the stability result obtained
(49) previously in the literature [26]. Indeed, we have previously
z, and the stability obtained was robust. In fact, z was chosen
as the sliding variable for the SMC in [21], and as the off-
the-manifold variable for the I&I controller in [26]. Now, this
passivity result explains and allows to extend our results by us-
ing this intrinsic property in Passivity-Based robust controllers
design for example.
To summarize, considering the error system (9), the deriva-
(50) tive of the lateral error ė and the variable z are passive outputs
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TAGNE et al.: ROBUST NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR LATERAL DYNAMICS OF INTELLIGENT VEHICLES
Fig. 6. PBC control strategy.
C. PBC-PI Controller Design
Probably the main property used in PBC for passive systems
is the fact that passivity is invariant under negative feedback
interconnection. Thus, in this methodology, the controller can
be designed as a passive system. However, it will also be useful
to know that interconnections not only preserve the passivity
properties of the subsystems but, in certain cases, passivity can
be strengthened.
The aim of the lateral control of autonomous intelligent
vehicles is to minimize the lateral displacement e of the vehicle
with respect to a given reference trajectory. Considering the
Fig. 6, we can design the lateral controller with the purpose
to control the lateral error e by controlling the variable z. The
controller is designed to cancel the passive output z with respect
to the reference trajectory curvature ρ. The control input is the
steering angle δ̃. We have to select a control input δ̃ such that
z = ė + λe converges to zero. Notice that, when z → 0, the
lateral error e converges exponentially to zero with the rate of
convergence λ, yielding to the desired result.
Proposition 8: Consider the diagram in Fig. 6, where the
control is achieved by a PI controller, the closed-loop system
is stable and passive.
Proof 8: The proof is relatively simple, the Corollary 1
allows to show it.
9
Fig. 7. The non-linear gain function with emax = 0.25 m and k0 = 12.
esat is defined as:

e for |e| ≤ emax
esat = (57)
emax sign(e) for |e| > emax
where k0 and emax are positive constants defined by the user:
emax is the variation range of the maximum admissible error,
and, k0 is the rate of reduction of the non-linear gains near to
the equilibrium.
When the error between the desired and actual values of the
controlled variable e is large, the non-linear gain is amplified
substantially so as to generate a large correction to rapidly drive
the system towards its desired state. When the error diminishes,
the non-linear gain is automatically reduced to prevent exces-
sive oscillations and large overshoots in the response near to the
equilibrium. Thanks to this automatic gains adjustment, this PI
controller enjoys the advantage of providing high gains far from
the objective to obtain a fast response, and a reduced gain near
the equilibrium so as to prevent an oscillatory behavior.
Considering the allowable lateral error to be less than
25 cm, in such a way to ensure trajectory tracking when
The map δ̃ −→ z is passive (P). Therefore, any Strictly avoiding risk of collision, the Fig. 7 presents the non-linear gain
Passive (SP) controller (a simple Proportional (P) or a PI for ke (e) function of the lateral error e. The gain varies between
example) guarantees stability and passivity of the closed-loop 1 and 10 for k0 = 12.
system. The proposed PBC-PI controller guarantees the stability and
It is well-known that PI controllers, if suitably tuned, provide the passivity of the system, for all its gains kI ke (e) > 0, and
a good solution to many practical applications without requiring kP ke (e) > 0. The parameters kI and kP have to be chosen
a detailed description of the system dynamics (when their use based on practical considerations related to the system perfor-
does not destabilize the system). In the presence of strong mance. Finally, the control input applied to the system is:
non-linearities, their performances can be deteriorated and it is t
therefore necessary to re-tune the controller or to use adaptive
δP BC−P I = δ̃ + δ = −kI ke (e)

zdt − kP ke (e)z
gains. Hence, we propose a PI with non-linear gains of the form:
⎡ ⎤ 0
t mVx2 (Lr Cr − Lf Cf )
+ (Lf + Lr )ρ + ρ. (58)
δ̃ = − ⎣kI zdt + kP z ⎦ ke (e) (55) μCf Cr (Lf + Lr )
0

where kI and kP are positive gains. ke (e) is a nonlinear gain VI. R ESULTS
function of the lateral error e. Before presenting the simulation results, we remind that
The non-linear gain ke (e) is a function depending on the the control input with the SMC controller is given by the
lateral error e which is bounded. This non-linear gain is Equation (18). The finite time convergence to the sliding surface
given by: is guaranteed for the conditions (16). These conditions depend
exp (k0 esat ) + exp (−k0 esat ) on the maximum considered magnitude (C0 , bmin , bmax ) of the
ke (e) = cosh(k0 esat ) = (56) system’s variables. If these conditions are no more verified, the
2
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10 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

Fig. 8. Track circuit. OKTAL-SCANeR Simulator.

convergence of the closed-loop system is no more guaranteed

and the performances of the SMC controller can also be signifi-
cantly deteriorated. For the SMC control law, we used the gains
λ = 8, α1 = 0.008, α2 = 0.008.
The control input with the I&I controller is given by the
Equation (30). This control law can be interpreted as a dy-
namic state feedback plus a PID controller (with adaptive gains
depending on the system parameters and variables) to ensure
robustness and reject the effect of parametric uncertainties and
disturbances. To validate this controller, we used the gains
λ = 8 as for the SMC, and K1 = 2, K2 = 0.5.
The control input with the PBC-PI controller is given by the
Equation (58). The gains used are kP = kI = 0.015.
We observe that the three control laws have almost similar
structure and can be interpreted as linear / non-linear PIDs
with a state feedback. It is important to note that in addition
to the conditions of stability, the gains of the three controllers
have also been adjusted in order to have comparable behavior
for a normal driving test with known design parameters. The
aim is to have a reliable assessment and comparison of the
performances of the controllers thereafter.
To apply our control laws, the yaw rate and the lateral error
are measured. The sideslip angle and the derivative of the lateral
error are estimated. Regarding the estimation of the sideslip
angle, we used a Kaman estimator based on the dynamic bicycle
model. For more details see [36]. Note that the same measures
are used for the SMC and the I&I controllers. The use of other
dynamic variables such as the yaw rate, the sideslip angle or an
equivalent term quickly bring the operating point to the desired
equilibrium while aiding the tracking of the reference.
To validate our control laws, tests were performed on
Fig. 9. Test of the controllers in normal driving conditions with known nominal
SCANeR Studio Driving Simulation Engine [29]. SCANeR parameters: (a) Road information and longitudinal speed. (b) Paths and errors.
Studio is a simulation environment developed by OKTAL so-
ciety. This is a complete software that meets the challenges of
driving simulation. Far from being a closed tool, it is a scal-
A. Test of Controllers During Normal Driving With Known
able simulation platform, extensible and open to the needs of
Nominal Parameters
researchers and engineers. This tool includes modules to model
and simulate the dynamics of the vehicle, traffic, pedestrian Fig. 9 presents the controllers in normal driving conditions
behaviour, etc. It offers –Human and Hardware in the Loop with known nominal parameters. Fig. 9(a) shows the profile of
(HHIL)– solutions allowing to get closer to a real experimental the vehicle longitudinal speed, curvature and slope of the road.
validation. The road curvature varies between −0.02 and +0.02 m–1 and
This simulator uses the vehicle full model; a more representa- the longitudinal speed varies between 5 m/s and 30 m/s. The
tive model to represent the vehicle coupled non-linear dynamics path followed by the controlled vehicle is shown in Fig. 9(b) for
and behaviour. Fig. 8 shows the test circuit selected. This circuit the three controllers. Moreover, the lateral error and the yaw
is used to test the controllers at high-speed. rate error are also presented in this Figure.
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TAGNE et al.: ROBUST NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR LATERAL DYNAMICS OF INTELLIGENT VEHICLES
Fig. 10. Steering angle.
Fig. 11. Non-linear gain value of the PBC-PI controller.
We observe that the SMC, the I&I and the PBC-PI con-
trollers can ensure the convergence of the lateral error. These
non-linear controllers are robust against speed variations. The
lateral error remains small when the speed Vx is varying. The
controllers have comparable maximum errors. The displace-
ment from the reference trajectory does not exceed 10 cm in
this test conditions (Fig. 9(b)).
Fig. 10 presents the steering angle of the controllers. The
I&I and PBC-PI controllers provide a continuous steering
angle while avoiding chattering. The I&I controller provides
the smoother steering angle.
Fig. 11 shows the variation of the non-linear PBC gain
function of time. Adaptive PBC-PI controller ensures a robust
path tracking. During the large turn; around t = 25 s, the
non-linear gain term improves performance by approximately
doubling the gains of the controller. Because of this automatic
gain adjustment, this PI controller enjoys the advantage of high
gain far from the equilibrium, so as to obtain a fast convergence,
and a reduced gain near to the desired state to prevent an
oscillatory behaviour.
This test therefore shows the good performances of the three
control strategies during normal driving, at high, varying speed
and with varying curvature, when nominal parameters are known.
The I&I and the adaptive PBCi-PI controllers provide equiva-
lent performances while having a smoother steering angle.
11
Fig. 12. Robustness against uncertainties of the cornering stiffness.
B. Robustness With Respect to Vehicle
Parameter Uncertainties
The test described above shows the performances of the
controllers during normal driving. For trajectory tracking, one
of the major challenges is the robustness of the controller
against uncertainties in the vehicle’s parameters or the driving
environment. We then evaluate the performance of the con-
trollers against parameter uncertainties.
Several parameters of the vehicle may be uncertain, as the tire
stiffness coefficient and the mass of the vehicle. To assess the
robustness of the controller with respect to parametric uncer-
tainties, we have changed the nominal value of the parameter
against which we want to verify the robustness of the control
law. Then we have tested the controller with this incorrect
parameter value.
It is difficult to accurately estimate the tire cornering stiff-
ness. In addition, this parameter varies considerably depending
on the type of road, the vertical load, camber, etc. Similarly,
the mass of the vehicle may be varied or poorly estimated. It
depends on the number of persons in the vehicle, the amount
of fuel, etc. It is therefore important to assess the robustness of
the controller with respect to uncertainties on these parameters.
Figs. 12 and 13 present the lateral error due to uncertainty from
+/−20% to +/−40% on the tire cornering stiffness and the
mass of the vehicle. For uncertainties of the order of +/−40%
regarding the value of cornering stiffness, the I&I and PBC-
PI controllers are able to follow the path with acceptable errors
in these test conditions (see Fig. 12. We assume that for safe
driving the maximum error should not exceed +/−25 cm).
The SMC controller has small errors, similar to nominal
conditions where curvature is constant. We observe a peak in
the lateral error around t = 25 s. This is due to a large variation
of the curvature with the vehicle at a high speed (see Fig. 9(a)).
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12
Fig. 13. Robustness against uncertainties of the vehicle mass.
This allows us to test the robustness of the controller against
abrupt changes of curvature at variable high speed. The SMC
controller is very sensitive to this abrupt change of curvature
of the road. This is explained by the fact that the behaviour
of the closed-loop system with SMC can be described by two
phases [37]:
• The convergence phase: this phase corresponds to the time
interval during which the system state trajectories are not
on the sliding surface. In this phase, the system is sensitive
to changes in parameters.
• The sliding phase: this phase corresponds to the time
interval during which the state trajectories are confined
throughout sliding surface. The sliding system has the
property of insensitivity with respect to disturbances.
In fact, the system with the SMC controller is insensitive to
disturbances only in sliding phase, but remains sensitive for the
transient phase, i.e. before the sliding surface is reached. This
is the reason why the behaviour of the system with the SMC
controller is not predictable for the transient phase and depends
on the level of disturbances and uncertainties. However, during
steady state this controller provides a lower error. With the I&I
controller, the error depends on the value of parametric uncer-
tainty and remains acceptable even for large variations. We note
that large variations in the parameters diminish performances,
but the stability is maintained.
We obtain similar results concerning the robustness with
respect to the uncertainties on the mass of the vehicle (Fig. 13).
The maximum error with the SMC controller increases sig-
nificantly in the presence of parametric uncertainties. This is
explained by the fact that during the convergence phase, the
sliding mode controller is sensitive to disturbances and param-
etric uncertainties. However, in steady state (sliding phase) the
error is almost nil and the controller is robust to parametric
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
TABLE III
C OMPARISON OF THE C ONTROL S TRATEGIES
uncertainties. The maximum error of the controller I&I de-
pends on the level of uncertainty but remains lower than the
maximum error of the SMC. The PBC-PI controller is robust
to parametric uncertainties. The error remains the same in the
presence of uncertainties. This is explained by the fact that the
control law of this controller does not depend directly on the ve-
hicle parameters. Indeed, this control input depends only on
passive outputs that are not dependent on uncertain parameters.
This controller is almost insensitive to parametric uncertainty.
Finally, it is well known that sliding mode control is unaf-
fected by disturbances if the matching condition is satisfied. In
case the vehicle’s lateral dynamics do not satisfy this condition,
the behaviour of the system is not only governed by sliding
surface, but also determined by mismatched disturbances. It is
important to underline the fact that this drawback of SMC also
shows the benefit provided by the I&I and PBC-PI controllers.
Even when the conditions of the SMC are respected as it is
the case in this validation (small and almost constant errors
of the SMC controller during the steady state), the I&I and
the PBC-PI approaches provide several improvements. They
provide smaller transient errors and a smoother steering an-
gle. With this new controllers (I&I and PBC-PI), we obtain
performances that are similar to or better than SMC without
chattering. In addition, we obtain a kind of robust stability of the
controlled system that is required for high speed safe driving.
Table III summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each
control strategy.
VII. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, an analysis of commonality of three nonlinear
controllers has been done for the application of lateral vehicle
control. The first controller is based on the sliding mode (SMC
controller). To improve the performances of this last, we have
used the principle of immersion and invariance which is more
general; it allows to have a greater degree of freedom in the
choice of the target dynamics and in the choice of law of conver-
gence towards this latter. The development of this controller has
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TAGNE et al.: ROBUST NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR LATERAL DYNAMICS OF INTELLIGENT VEHICLES
allowed us to obtain a robust stability for all the positive gains of
the controller. This strong result of stability led us to study the
passivity properties of the system, showing that the variable z =
ė + λe is a passive output for a steering input δ̃. Then we pro-
posed an adaptive PI with non-linear gains based on this struc-
tural property of the model. Developed controllers had similar
mathematical structure and have been compared to highlight
the advantages and disadvantages of each control approach.
The simulation environment was used to assess the robustness
of the controllers in several scenarios representing different
driving situations: constant/variable speed, curvature, strong
non-linearity. The robustness of the controllers has also been
assessed against the parametric uncertainties of the vehicle.
In the different tests performed, it appears that the three non-
linear controllers (SMC, I&I and PBC-PI) ensure a robust
tracking of the reference trajectory. The three controllers are
robust to variations in speed and curvature. The SMC provides
low steady state error, but it is quite sensitive in transient period
causing significant peaks during rapid changes of curvature in
presence of disturbances or parametric uncertainties. The con-
troller I&I allows a better consideration of the model during
the controller design and provides good performances. This
controller provides an improvement of performances compared
to the sliding mode for lateral control of intelligent vehicles.
The PBC-PI controller provides a robust control with respect
to parametric uncertainties. With its adaptive gains, it achieves
very good performances. Results show that a greater consid-
eration of structural features of the model during the design
of a controller can considerably improve the robustness of the
controller for autonomous driving applications.
It is important to stress that the proved results of passivity
are largely beyond the scope of the PBC-PI controller proposed
in the paper. As these interesting properties are proved, they
can be used in general to design more efficient model-based
controllers. We are studying the properties of passivity of
the lateral dynamics using a non-linear model of tire contact
forces in order to extend these results to vehicle stabilization
applications (non-linear region).
We would also like to extend this comparison to other robust
control strategies such as the H∞ command and the model
predictive control.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank R. Lozano for their exchange
about the theory of passivity, which was a great help to them.
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Gilles Tagne received the Engineering degree and
the M.Sc. degree in control engineering and indus-
trial computing from Ecole Nationale Supérieure
d’Ingénieurs Sud Alsace (ENSISA), France, in 2011
and the Ph.D. degree in automation and Robotics
from Université de technologie de Compiègne (UTC),
France, in 2014. His research interests include ro-
botics, particularly the analysis, task planning, and
control of complex systems.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Reine Talj received the Electrical Engineer degree
from Lebanese University, Lebanon, in 2005; the
Master Research degree in automatic signal process-
ing from the University of Paris-Sud XI and Supelec
Gif-sur-Yvette, France, in 2006; and the Ph.D. de-
gree in modeling and nonlinear control of the air
system of fuel cells from Université de Paris-Sud XI,
France, in 2009. Since 2010, she has been a Re-
searcher with HEUDIASYC Laboratory, University
of Technology of Compiègne, Compiègne, France.
Her research interests include control and trajectory
planning of intelligent vehicles.
Ali Charara received the Electrical Engineer degree
from Lebanese University, Lebanon, in 1987; the
Master Research degree in automatic signal process-
ing from Grenoble Institute of Technology, Grenoble,
France, in 1988; and the Ph.D. degree in automatic
control from Université de Savoie, Annecy, France,
in 1992. Since 1992, he has been an Assistant Pro-
fessor and subsequently a Full Professor with the
Department of Information Processing Engineering,
Université de technologie de Compiègne (UTC),
Compiègne, France, where he has also been the Di-
rector of the Heudiasyc Laboratory (joint Laboratory CNRS/UTC) since 2008.
His current research interests include intelligent vehicles, driving assistance
systems, state observers, and diagnosis of electromechanical systems.