The Design of a Controller for a Following Vehicle in an Emergency Lane Change Maneuver

A lane change maneuver is one of the many appropriate responses to an emergency situation. The design of an Emergency Lane Change (ELC) maneu- ver for a platoon of two vehicles is considered in this paper. In response to the presence of a stationary or a slowly moving obstacle in the lane or any such emergency, the lead vehicle in the platoon designs an ELC trajectory on-line and broadcasts the trajectory curvature information in real time to its follower. The problem considered, in this paper, is the design of an integrated lateral and longitudinal controller that enables the follower to track the lead vehicle's trajectory, while maintaining a desired following distance. A sliding mode con- troller is developed for this purpose and its performance is demonstrated in simulations.