Shared lateral control with on-line adaptation of the automation degree for driver steering assist system: A weighting design approach

This paper addresses the shared lateral control for both lane-keeping and obstacle avoidance tasks of a driver steering assist system (DSAS). In this work, we propose a novel approach to deal with the interactions between the human (driver) and the machine (DSAS) by introducing into the vehicle system a fictive nonlinear term representing the driver activity. In this way, the actions of the DSAS are computed according to the driver behaviors (actions and intentions). Based on Takagi-Sugeno control technique together with Lyapunov stability tools, the designed controller is able to handle a large range of variation of vehicle longitudinal speed. In particular, this controller can deal with the system state constraints and also the control input saturation. As will be discussed later, the consideration of these constraints into the control design improves significantly the closed-loop performance under various driving situations. The interests of the proposed method are validated by simulations.

Low Speed Automation, a French Initiative

Nowadays, vehicle safety is constantly increasing thanks to the improvement of vehicle passive and active safety. However, on a daily usage of the car, traffic jams remains a problem. With limited space for road infrastructure, automation of the driving task on specific situation seems to be a possible solution. The French project ABV, which stands for low speed automation, tries to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept and to prove the benefits. In this article, we describe the scientific background of the project and expected outputs.