The Development of the Autonomous Tractor with Steering Controller Applied by Optimal Control

This paper reported about new steering control algorithm for an autonomous vehicle. The steering controller developed in previous research was designed to guide along with a straight path, and it didn’t confirm the accuracy of following a curved path. But the robot tractor has to have a function to travel along any curved path precisely to achieve the farm management by the robot. The steering control algorithm applied a linear optimal regulator was developed and tested at a field with some curved paths. The developed system showed the outstanding guidance performance comparing to a conventional method which used a PI controller on all types of the paths including a 90 degree turn and a sinusoidal paths. In addition, the developed controller could perform high-speed guidance at 3.0m/s more precisely than the conventional PI controller.