AVEC ’12

Design and Investigation of Vehicle Control Strategies for

Lane Guidance Control System
Jangyeol Yoon, Taeyoung Chung, Kwangkeun Shin

17-2, 240 Beon-Gil, Mabuk-Ro, Giheung-Gu

Yongin-Si, Gyeonggi-Do, 446-912, KOREA
Phone: +82-31-8021-4874
Fax: +82-31-899-1519
E-mail: jyoon@mobis.co.kr

During the last few years, a lot of results of the lane keeping assist (LKA) systems have been
reported and a few manufacturers applied LKA systems to commercial vehicles. These systems,
however, only work in limited situations when the vehicle departs from the lane, by introducing a
gentle steering torque to help the driver keep the vehicle in the lane. In this paper, a lane guidance
control (LGC) system, which is more active than the LKA, is designed in three of way and
investigated via computer simulations and real vehicle tests. The performance of the proposed
LGC systems are analyzed and compared to each other.

Topics / Vehicle Dynamics, Modeling and Simulation, Autonomous Vehicle, Advanced Driver Assistance System

1. INTRODUCTION of LGC system which are designed by three different

While a variety of factors contribute to accidents,
human error due to inattention, illness, or sleepiness is
one of the most important causes of all accidents. In
order to prevent this type of accidents, a variety of
driver assistance systems have been developed by
automotive manufacturers to automate mundane driving
operations, to reduce driver burden and thus to reduce
highway accidents [1]. Examples of such driver
assistance systems under development include smart
cruise control (ACC), lane keeping assist (LKA) system,
blind spot detection (BSD), collision avoidance system,
and so on.
The LKA system is, especially, becoming an
interesting area for commercial production as one of the
drive assistant systems because of vehicle fatalities
induced by unintended lane departure. NHTSA
estimated that running off the road caused about 28% of
the fatal motor vehicle crashes in the US in 2005.
Moreover, drowsy, sleeping, or fatigued drivers and
inattentive drivers caused about 2.6% and 5.8% of the
fatal crashes, respectively [2].
During the last few years, a lot of results of the
LKA systems have been reported and a few
manufacturers applied LKA systems to commercial
vehicles. These systems, however, only work in limited
situations when the vehicle departs from the lane, by
introducing a gentle steering torque to help the driver
keep the vehicle in the lane [3-5]. Some researchers
proposed lane guidance control (LGC) system which is
fully activated LKA system that follows the centerline
of the lane [6-8].
This paper mainly focuses on the control strategies
methodologies listed below:
(1) Predictive model-based control strategy
(2) Model-based LQR control strategy
(3) Kinematics-based control strategy
The performance of these control strategies are
verified and compared via computer simulations with
Matlab/Simulink and CARSIM. The vehicle tests are
also performed, and the experimental results are
included.
2. CONTROLLER DESIGN FOR LGC SYSTEM
The LGC system, which is designed in this research,
is comprised of three components such as camera sensor,
controller, and vehicle with motor driven power steering
(MDPS) as shown in Figure 1. The camera sensor
detects the lane, and estimates vehicle position relative
to the lane such as lateral offset, heading angle, and road
curvature. From the lane information and vehicle states,
which are acquired from camera and vehicle sensors,
the LGC controller calculates the desired vehicle motion
to follow the road centerline, and determines the desired
steering wheel angle (SWA) as a control input to the
vehicle.
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of LGC system
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As mentioned in the section 1, the three different a wheel base, and lf and lr are the distance from CG to
LGC methodologies are designed and investigated in front and rear of the vehicle, respectively. m is the mass
this research. and ay is a lateral acceleration of the vehicle.

2.1 Predictive model-based controller 2.2 Model-based LQR controller

Firstly, the predictive model-based controller
(PMC) is designed by predicting the future position of
the vehicle. Based on the present vehicle motion and
lane information, the controller determines the desired
SWA so that the vehicle follows the desired path.
Secondly, the model-based LQR controller is
designed by using an optimal feedback control theory.
A dynamic state equation is formulated by using lateral
offset, heading angle, and its derivatives. Furthermore,
feed-forward control input is added to compensate for
the steady state error, which is induced by the road
curvature.
The lateral vehicle dynamics model including the
road model, which is used for design of the LQR
controller, is represented in Figure 3.

Fig. 3 Lateral vehicle dynamics model

Fig. 2 Predictive model

The dynamic state equation is derived from the

The PMC estimates the predictive position B from lateral vehicle dynamics model as follows:
the present position A by using vehicle speed, relative
X  AX  Bu  C des (6)
heading angle and road curvature as shown in Figure 2.
The predictive lateral offset error after in a certain time, where,
X      d   d    e1 e1 e2 e2  ,
T T
Tp, is also calculated as follows:
 P    v  c (1)
0 1 0 0 
where  is the present lateral offset that is obtained 
0 2C  2Cr 2C f  2Cr 2C f l f  2Cr lr 
from camera sensor, and  v and  c are the predictive  f
 mVx m mVx 
lateral offset which are induced by vehicle velocity and A ,
road curvature, respectively.  v and  c are calculated 0 0 0 1 
 
2C l 2Cr lr 2C f l f 2Cr lr  2

2C l 2Cr lr 2
as follows: 0  f f  f f 
 v  Vx sin    Tp (2)  I zVx Iz I zVx 
 0   0 
 Vx 
 c   Vx sin    dt   Vx sin  
dt  dt (3)  2C   2C l  2C l 
 RE   f   f f r r
 Vx 
 m   mVx 
where RE is a radius of curvature at the predictive B  , C  , u   LQR .
0   0 
position. The desired yaw rate for following the desired  
path is calculated as follows:  2C f l f   2C f l 2f  2Cr lr2 
    
p  Iz   I zVx 
 des , P  (4)
Tp In equation (6), the states are the lateral position
error and the heading angle difference between the
   v  c 
where,  p  tan 1   . vehicle and the road.  and  are the lateral offset
 Sp
  and heading angle of the vehicle, respectively. Iz is the
Finally, the steering wheel angle as an input of the moment of inertia about z-axis of the vehicle. The
vehicle is derived from the bicycle model as follows: desired yaw rate,  des , is determined by using road
l  des , P m  lr lf  curvature and vehicle speed as follows:
P       ay (5)
 des   Vx
Vx l  C f Cr  (7)
In equation (5), Cf and Cr are the cornering stiffness. l is The cost function is determined to yield an optimal

control input as follows:
tf
J   { X QX  u Ru}dt
T T
(8)
0
where Q and R are weigh matrices that penalize states or
inputs. By finding a proper KLQR that minimizes the
given quadratic cost function, the optimal control input
to follow the desired path is yielded as follows:
u   LQR   K LQR X (9)
2.3 Kinematics-based controller
Finally, the kinematics-based controller is designed
by considering the kinematic relation of the vehicle
motion. The controller calculates a desired turning
radius of the vehicle at every instant so that the vehicle
can move to the target point at a certain distance. The
desired vehicle motion is simply determined by using
the desired turning radius and vehicle speed.
Fig. 4 Kinematic model
As shown in Figure 4, the desired vehicle moving
path can be represented by circle in order to move the
vehicle from the present point A to the target point B at
a certain distance L. The radius of circle, Rdes, can be
calculated by using trigonometric functions with
coordinates of A and B in the triangle ABO. The
coordinates of point A and B are calculated by using the
lateral offset, heading angle, and radius of road
curvature obtained from camera sensor as follows:
 road ( L   )
2 2
x  L2  y 2 , y   (10)
2(1   road  )
where road=1/Rroad. L is a target distance and  is the
lateral offset. The radius of the desired turning circle is
also calculated by using trigonometric functions in the
triangle ABO` as follows:
2 proposed LGC systems in the similar situations to actual
 des  1/ Rdes  2 ( y cos   x sin  )
L and the vehicle model was set as a sedan. The lateral
(11)
 x  L sin  , y  L cos 
where, 
 Rdes cos      L / 2
The desired yaw rate is simply obtained by using
the desired curvature and vehicle speed. In addition, rear
AVEC ’12
compliance of the vehicle, which is induced by side slip
angle, is considered to improve the control performance
as follows:
 des , K   des ,com  Vx
(12)
where,  des ,com   des  f   
Finally, the steering command,  K , is yielded to
make the desired yaw motion of the vehicle as follows:
 K  K ff  des , K  K fb   des , K (13)  
where Kff and Kfb are control gains of feedforward and
feedback control, respectively.
3. SIMULATION RESULTS
The computer simulations have been conducted in
order to verify the performance of the proposed three of
LGC control strategies, which are described in Section 2,
and the control performances are compared to each
other. The LGC controllers are implemented using
Matlab/Simulink, and simulated under CARSIM
environment. Road environment is modeled based on
the actual test roads shown in Figure 5.
Fig. 5 Test road map
The curvature of the test road, which has been
measured by camera sensor, is presented in Figure 6,
and its minimum curvature is about 1,200 m.
-3
x 10
2
Road curvature [1/m]
1
0
-1
-2
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time [sec]
Fig. 6 Curvature of actual road
Figure 7 shows the simulation results of the
road environment. The vehicle speed was set to 70 km/h,
offset, heading angle, steering wheel angle, and yaw
rate are shown in Figure 7, respectively.
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0.3 Table 1. Summary of simulation results

Predictive
0.2 (1) (2) (3)
Lateral offset [m]
LQR
0.1 Kinematics Lateral offset
0
0.013 0.023 0.019
RMS [m]
-0.1 error Heading angle
0.013 0.038 0.024
-0.2 [deg]
0 10 20 30 40 50 Num. of tuning parameters 7 9 4
Time [sec]
(1) Predictive model-base controller
(a) Lateral offset (2) Model-base LQR controller
(3) Kinematics- based controller
0.3
Predictive
As can be seen from Table 1, the predictive
Heading angle [deg]

0.2
LQR
0.1 Kinematics model-based LGC strategy shows the best performance
0 among the three. The kinematics-based LGC strategy
-0.1 shows the equal or a bit better performance than the
-0.2 model-based LQR method. Although the predictive
model-based LGC strategy shows the best performance,
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time [sec]
it requires precise vehicle parameters and many tuning
(b) Heading angle parameters. This makes it practically difficult for the
engineers to develop such system. The model-based
5
LQR controller has the same drawbacks with the
Predictive predictive model-based control strategy. The kinematics
Steering angle [deg]

LQR
-based LGC strategy, however, is the simplest and
Kinematics
0
practically useful among the three as it requires only
four tuning parameters without any precise knowledge
of vehicle dynamics parameters. Furthermore, the
performance of the kinematics-based LGC strategy is
-5
0 10 20 30 40 50 also within the acceptable range.
Time [sec]
(c) Steering wheel angle 4. VEHICLE TEST RESULTS
2
Predictive The real vehicle tests have been also performed
LQR under the same road conditions as shown in Figure 5
Yaw rate [deg/s]

1
Kinematics and Figure 6. The test vehicle is comprised of the
0 camera sensor, MDPS, human-machine interface (HMI),
-1
and rapid control prototyping (RCP) equipment. Figure
8 shows the configuration of the test vehicle and its
-2 components. The camera sensor for detection of the lane
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time [sec] is located at the top of the windshield. The MDPS
(d) Yaw rate module, which makes it possible to control the steering,
is equipped with test vehicle. The HMI informs whether
Fig. 7 Simulation results of the LGC the lane detection, and the status of control system to
the driver. The control algorithms are implemented in
Figure 7-(a) and (b) shows the time-histories of the the RCP equipment, ‘Micro AutoBox’. All of data from
lateral offset from the road center line, and heading each component are transferred or received by CAN
angle relative to the lane, respectively. All of the lateral communications.
offset show under 0.1 m, and the heading angles are also
maintained 0.1 deg, that is, all three LGC control
strategies show good performances for path following
as shown in Figure 7. Among them, especially, the
predictive model-based one shows the best performance
in the view point of the lateral offset and heading angle.
Table 1 summarizes the simulation results and the
number of tuning parameters required to design the
controllers. The differences of the steering wheel angle
and yaw rate are small enough to be neglected as shown
in Figure 7-(c) and (d).
Fig. 8 Configuration of the test vehicle

All of the vehicle tests have been conducted with

hands-off condition that the driver did not grip the
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steering under same road conditions with simulations.

Predictive

Steering wheel angle [deg]

The vehicle test results of the proposed LGC systems 5 LQR
are presented in Figure 9. The vehicle speed of the test Kinematics
was set to about 70 km/h as shown in Figure 9-(a). The
0
time-histories of the lateral offset, heading angle,
steering wheel angle, and yaw rate are shown in Figure
-5
9-(b)~(e), respectively.
Figure 9-(b) and (c) show the time-history of the
0 10 20 30 40 50
lateral offset from road center line, and heading angle, Time [sec]
respectively. In the view point of the lateral offset, the (d) Steering wheel angle
model-based LQR and the kinematics-based controller
show similarly good performance except the predictive 2
model-based controller. In the case of the model based Predictive
LQR
LQR and the kinematics-based controller. The lateral 1

Yaw rate [deg/s]

Kinematics
offset errors are maintained under about 0.3 m.
0
However, the lateral offset error of the predictive
model-based controller is increases over 0.5 m. The -1
model-based LQR shows the worst performance in the
view point of the heading angle. In contrast, two of -2
0 10 20 30 40 50
other controller shows similarly good performance. The Time [sec]
heading angle of the model-based LQR controller is (e) Yaw rate
increased over 0.5 deg. In the case of the predictive
model-based and the kinematics based controller, the Fig. 9 Vehicle test results of the LGC
heading angle is controlled under about 0.5 deg. The
steering wheel angles, which are control input, of each
The vehicle test results are summarized in Table 2.
control strategies are shown in Figure 9-(d), and the
In summary, the kinematics-based LGC strategy shows
corresponding yaw rates are illustrated in Figure 9-(d)
the good performance consistently for path following.
Other two of controllers, however, show the
80
performance degradation, depending on the driving
situations. It may be caused that theses controllers have
Vehicle speed [kph]

60
too many tuning parameters, and it is too hard to tune by
40 developer as results. In contrast, it is easy to tune in the
Predictive
case of the kinematics-based LGC strategy, because of
20
LQR small and intuitive tuning parameters. The kinematics-
0
Kinematics based LGC, therefore, can be guaranteed consistent
0 10 20 30 40 50 performance.
Time [sec]
(a) Vehicle speed Table 2. Summary of vehicle test results
(1) (2) (3)
2
Lateral offset
0.34 0.19 0.11
RMS [m]
Lateral offset [m]

1
error Heading angle
0.22 0.32 0.20
0 [deg]

-1 Predictive Num. of tuning parameters 7 9 4

LQR
Kinematics
(1) Predictive model-base controller
-2 (2) Model-base LQR controller
0 10 20 30 40 50
(3) Kinematics- based controller
Time [sec]
(b) Lateral offset
5. CONCLUSIONS
1
This paper presented the design and investigation of
a lane guidance control strategies: (1) Predictive
Heading angle [deg]

0.5
model-based control, (2) Model-based LQR control, (3)
0 Kinematics-based control. The performance of designed
Predictive
control strategies were investigated and analyzed via
-0.5
LQR computer simulations and vehicle tests. The simulations
-1
Kinematics were conducted with road model, which is modeled
0 10 20 30 40 50 based on the actual road. The vehicle tests were also
Time [sec]
performed under same road.
(c) Heading angle From simulation and vehicle test results, it is shown
that all of proposed control strategies are good enough
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to apply to the lane guidance control system. Among

them, especially, the kinematics-based control strategy
is a good solution for design of the LGC system,
because of its good performance and easiness of tuning.
The control strategies proposed in the paper could be
used to advanced driver assistance system application
such as lane change control, autonomous driving, and so
on.

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