In this dissertation, a lateral control design is presented for automatic steering of active four-wheel steering (4WS) vehicles for highway driving. The linearized two degree-of freedom (2 DOF) equations for the lateral dynamics are derived using the Newton's equations. A robust controller using -analysis and synthesis is designed for a linear model of a passenger cars moving a given path. The performance of the robust controller is then evaluated using simulation studies.
It is shown that the presented control method possesses the inherent advantages that are robust to complex uncertainty for typical driving maneuvers. Finally, the active 4WS vehicle achieves good performance for a wide range of uncertainty in the highway operating conditions.