Path Planning and Steering Control for an Automatic Perpendicular Parking Assist System

This paper considers the perpendicular reverse parking problem of front wheel steering vehicles. Relationships between the widths of the parking aisle and the parking place, as well as the parameters and initial position of the vehicle for planning a collision-free reverse perpendicular parking in one maneuver are first presented. Two types of steering controllers (bang-bang and saturated tanh-type controllers) for straightline tracking are proposed and evaluated. It is demonstrated that the saturated controller, which is continuous, achieves also quick steering avoiding chattering and can be successfully used in solving parking problems. Simulation results and first experimental tests confirm the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.