Modeling and simulation of four-wheel steering unmanned ground vehicles using a PID controller

System modeling and simulation are widely used in robotic vehicle engineering to reduce development time, improve the vehicle design, and miniaturize complex systems. This paper focuses on the steering control of a four-wheel steering vehicle. Optimally-tuned PID controllers are designed for autonomous ground vehicles. The required mission path and stability of steering are achieved by reducing the error between the vehicle heading and the target point. Predefined waypoints are set for the trajectory tracking system. An optimal genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed to tune the vehicle controllers. The proposed GA-tuned-PID controller exhibits satisfactory simulation results and promising experimental results. This paper reports the current status of an ongoing research project for a fully autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (UGV).