A 3D Path-Following Velocity-Tracking Controller for Autonomous Vehicles

This paper addresses the path-following problem of steering an autonomous vehicle along a desired path, while tracking a predefined velocity profile. The presented solution relies on the definition of a path-dependent error space to express the dynamic model of the vehicle, which is specially suited for a D-methodology controller implementation. The error space exhibits a high-degree of directionality accuracy in the definition of velocity references. The proposed strategy guarantees asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system about trimming paths, and has the particular feature of eliminating the need to feedforward trimming values for both actuation and vehicle orientation. The effectiveness of the technique is assessed in simulation with the full nonlinear model of a model-scale helicopter.