Abstract
Accurate tracking of a given path is one of the primary factors in the maneuverability of a vehicle and is also an important topic in autonomous vehicle research. To solve the problem of vehicle path tracking, the problem must first be transformed into an optimal control problem. Then, a symplectic pseudospectral method (SPM) based on the third-generation function of symplectic theory and pseudospectral discretization is proposed to efficiently solve the nonlinear optimal control problems. Finally, the results obtained by the proposed algorithm are compared with those obtained by the Gauss pseudospectral method (GPM). The simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively solve the vehicle path tracking problem. Furthermore, the vehicle can track the given path controlled by the proposed algorithm with higher accuracy and greater applicability than other methods.