Path tracking with minimum time of vehicle handling inverse dynamics based on adaptive gauss pseudospectral method

Vehicle driving safety is the urgent key problem to be solved by an independent automobile development project. And it is also the premise and one of the necessary conditions for active vehicle safety. A new technique for path tracking with minimum time of vehicle handling inverse dynamics is proposed in this paper. Based on a new optimal control method – Adaptive Gauss Pseudospectral Method (AGPM), the optimal control for path tracking with minimum time problem was converted into a nonlinear programming problem which met the boundary condition and a series of path constraints including path constraint, state constraint, control constraint. And then the problem was solved using the sequential quadratic programming (SQP). The simulation results showed that the proposed method was not sensitive to the initial value and the optimization efficiency was higher compared with indirect methods and traditional direct methods. When solving the problem of path tracking with minimum time as per this method, boundary constraints and path constraints were well satisfied. The algorithm was not only precise but it could also shorten the evaluation period of vehicle handling stability and could reduce the tremendous cost for real vehicle testing. So the maneuverability of two different vehicles that complete the pylon course slalom test road with minimum time can be evaluated objectively by utilizing the method. The model correctness is verified through a real vehicle test