The Concept of Passive Control Assistance for Docking Maneuvers With N-Trailer Vehicles

We present a concept of passive control-assistance system, which can help a human driver in precise maneuvers with a tractor-trailer vehicle in the task of docking with the last trailer. The novel approach is developed for truly N-trailer vehicles comprising a car-like tractor and arbitrary number of on-axle or off-axle hitched trailers. Passivity of the proposed assistance system results from the fact that it does not interact directly with a vehicle, but acts solely as an advisor suggesting control action to a human operator through a passive human-machine interface. The key role in the concept plays the cascaded Vector-Field-Orientation feedback control law responsible for computation of the efficient control strategy for a driver based on a feedback from a current vehicle configuration. The passive assistance system has been functionally compared with an alternative active control assistance proposed in the literature. This paper reports the results of experimental tests conducted with a laboratory-scale vehicle, which illustrate efficacy of the cooperation between a driver and a control assistant in the task of backward docking with three trailers.