Wireless Networked Control for Active Trailer Steering Systems of Articulated Vehicles

Compared with conventional wired control systems, Wireless Networked Control (WNC) systems bear a number of advantages, including flexibility, low-cost and easy maintenance. In all networked control systems, a major challenge is network delay, which degrades the overall system performance, but this is more significant in wireless communications. This paper investigates the use of a LQR-gain scheduler to provide a proper control gain vector to stabilize an articulated vehicle with an Articulated Trailer Steering (ATS) system affected by delays in the sensor data that caused by wireless communications in the feedback control loop. Through comparing with a baseline vehicle that has no sensor feedback delay, it is demonstrated that the LQR gain scheduler controller can tolerate up to 0.9 s delays before the articulated vehicle becomes unstable.