Supervised reinforcement learning based trajectory tracking control for autonomous vehicles

Abstract

Recent developments in autonomous vehicle technologies and applications gain a lot of interest by the public, as the popularity of both driver assistance and automated driving systems increase. One of the most promising aspect of the autonomous vehicle compared to conventional human driven vehicle is the increased level of safety. Machine learning techniques enables to achieve fast and efficient control actions compared to model based techniques. However, the advantages of a more conservative model based controller are their better robustness properties. In this paper a synergy of the two control philosophy is presented through a trajectory tracking control design for autonomous vehicles. A supervised reinforcement learning (RL) control method is introduced, where a robust Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) controller supervises the operation of the trained RL agent. Thus, in case sensor noise is detected, the guaranteed stability LPV controller takes over the steering control action. In order to demonstrate the operation of the proposed method, three different simulations have been evaluated and compared in CarSim simulation environment.