Fixed Settling Time Control for Self-Driving Car: Two-Timescales Approach

This article involves the design of a novel path tracking control technique for the self-driving car. Fixed settling time sliding mode control (FSTSMC) with barrier Lyapunov function is implemented to deal with the non-linear lateral dynamics and to ensure stable standard double-lane-change (DLC) maneuver of self-driving cars in the presence of unknown lateral tire forces and parametric uncertainties. A two-time scale-based approach is employed to deal with the slow and fast dynamics of the car separately. The proposed control scheme efficacy is investigated using simulations based on CarSim and Simulink. The simulation results validate the path-tracking ability of the proposed controller for self-driving cars while accomplishing the stable double-lane-change maneuver at various forward speeds.