Exponentially Stabilizing Output Tracking of Fully Autonomous Passenger Cars with an Observer

This paper, inspired by resolved acceleration control techniques popular in robotics, presents an automated vehicle control algorithm for combined longitudinal and lateral motion control of highway vehicles with special emphasis on passenger cars. Key design features are: 1) inherent coupling effects are taken into account as a result of combining two control issues, viz., lateral and longitudinal control; 2) rather ad hoc numerical approximations of lateral velocity are avoided via a combined controller-observer design; 3) closed-loop exponential stability issues of the overall system are established. The algorithm is validated via formative mathematical analyzes and numerical simulations