Centimeter-Level Accuracy Path Tracking Control of Tractors and Actively Steered Implements

Accurate path tracking control of tractors became a key technology for automation in agriculture. Increasingly sophisticated solutions, however, revealed that accurate path tracking control of implements is at least equally important. Therefore, this work focuses on accurate path tracking control of both tractors and implements. The latter, as a prerequisite for improved control, are equipped with steering actuators like steerable wheels or a steerable drawbar, i.e. the implements are actively steered. This work contributes both new plant models and new control approaches for those kinds of tractor-implement combinations. Plant models comprise dynamic vehicle models accounting for forces and moments causing the vehicle motion as well as simplified kinematic descriptions. All models have been derived in a systematic and automated manner to allow for variants of implements and actuator combinations. Path tracking controller design begins with a comprehensive overview and discussion of existing approaches in related domains. Two new approaches have been proposed combining the systematic setup and tuning of a Linear-Quadratic-Regulator with the simplicity of a static output feedback approximation. The first approach ensures accurate path tracking on slopes and curves by including integral control for a selection of controlled variables. The second approach, instead, ensures this by adding disturbance feedforward control based on side-slip estimation using a non-linear kinematic plant model and an Extended Kalman Filter. For both approaches a feedforward control approach for curved path tracking has been newly derived. In addition, a straightforward extension of control accounting for the implement orientation has been developed. All control approaches have been validated in simulations and experiments carried out with a mid-size tractor and a custom built demonstrator implement