Experimental Validation of Geometric Path Following Control with Demand Supervision on an Over-Actuated Robotic Vehicle

Abstract

This work describes the development and experimental validation of a geometric path following control strategy with demand supervision applied to an over-actuated robotic vehicle, the ROboMObil. The proposed method enables the ROboMObil to automatically follow paths while the driver is free to control the velocity along the path. Beside the longitudinal degree of freedom, two lateral degrees of freedom can be controlled relative to the path. If this demand interface were provided without supervision, the driver may potentially overwrite the path following control in a manner such that the vehicle limits are violated and the vehicle becomes unstable. To avoid such critical situations a demand supervisor is introduced into the path following framework. The work concludes by a simulative demonstration of the supervised control system and an experimental validation of the presented approach implemented in the ROboMObil.