Control and maneuver assessment of the Anaconda

The purpose of this paper is to assess the maneuver capabilities of the Anaconda. The Anaconda is a new single track vehicle composed of a Head module HM and some Pedal modules PM connected to each other by spherical joints. The HM is a classical bicycle and the PMs have rear steered wheels. Based on the work done in [1], where the mechanical model was presented and the "rideability" evaluated, the driver models are slightly modified to take into the account the path to be followed during the maneuver assessment. Two dimensional paths are generated as parametric cubic Hermite splines. Simulation results show that the Anaconda follows the prescribed maneuver path with sufficient cross-track error and torques involved in these tasks are not out of reach of human capabilities.