Speed control design for an experimental vehicle using a generalized gain scheduling approach

This paper describes the design and experimental evaluation of a nonlinear automotive speed control system. The approach implemented here is based on interpolation of multiple linear controllers designed using multiple local linear models. This is a generalized form of gain scheduling since the models and controllers take explicit account of both stationary and nonstationary (off-equilibrium) operating points. This paper focuses on engineering aspects and experimental evaluation in a test vehicle. The nonlinear controller is tested in a range of speed-profile tracking tasks, and in a disturbance rejection task (the vehicle is driven up a 10% slope). For comparison, linear controllers are implement ed. The proposed nonlinear control approach gives excellent performance over the complete operational range. The nonlinear controller can directly account for the strong plant nonlinearities and the engineering constraints.