Curvature-Aware Model Predictive Contouring Control

We present a novel Curvature-Aware Model Predictive Contouring Control (CA-MPCC) formulation for mobile robotics motion planning. Our method aims at generalizing the traditional contouring control formulation derived from machining to autonomous driving applications. The proposed controller is able of handling sharp curvatures in the reference path while subject to non-linear constraints, such as lane boundaries and dynamic obstacle collision avoidance. Compared to a standard MPCC formulation, our method improves the reliability of the path-following algorithm and simplifies the tuning, while preserving real-time capabilities. We validate our findings in both simulations and experiments on a scaled-down car-like robot.