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Most tractor-semitrailers are fitted with multi-axle trailers which cannot be actively steered, and such vehicles with an articulated configuration are inclined to exhibit instability such as trailer swing, jack-knifing, and rollover at high speed. Proposed in this paper is an optimal control of the yaw stability of tractor-semitrailers at high speed by applying an active trailer's steering angle. An optimal control algorithm is designed by employing a 3-DOF vehicle model in the yaw plane. The optimal linear quadratic regulator (LQR) approach is used with a cost function including sideslip angles, yaw rates of both tractor and trailer, and trailer's steering angle. The yaw stability at the high speed is also quantified by the dynamic performance measurements of lateral path deviation, hitch angle and rearward amplification (RA). The algorithm is evaluated by co-simulations using TruckSim and Matlab/Simulink softwares.

Improving driving safety and freeway capacity is an indispensable research issue for road vehicles, especially for tractor semi-trailers, which on the one hand exhibit unstable motion modes at high speeds due to their articulated configurations and undertake the largest part of freight transportation on freeways. Automatic driving is rated as the ultimate solution of vehicle safety since it can significantly reduce accidents resulting from human driver errors. Proposed in this paper is a gain-scheduled PID controller for automatic path-following of a tractor semi-trailer. The PID controller minimizes the vehicle's predicted lateral deviation and heading error with respect to the desired path at a preview point, and gains of the controller are scheduled with respect to vehicle speed.