A four-level test system for evaluating pavement compaction performance of autonomous articulated vehicles

This article develops a four-level test system for accurately evaluating pavement compaction performance of autonomous articulated vehicles. In the evaluation layer, various performance indicators are evaluated, including the stability, rapidity and accuracy of trajectory tracking, and the ratio of required compaction to actual compaction once and twice and compaction repeatability index when pavement compaction. The guidance and control layer can be described in terms of theory and application. At the theoretical level, the line of sight guidance algorithm and incremental proportional integral control algorithm are introduced to eliminate system control lag. Among them, the best line of sight guidance and incremental proportional integral control parameters are selected by the Elitist strategies genetic algorithm, and the initial parameters are set according to human driving experience initial control parameters. At the application level, the BECKHOFF controller, a kind of programmable logic controller, acts as the main guidance and control unit in the four-level control system, fixed speed is given to the autonomous articulated vehicle by setting the engine speed and transmission gear, and steering wheel angle is adjusted in real time by the BECKHOFF controller. In the sensor level, a simplified sensor configuration is used to reduce overall cost. The comparative simulation results of no controller, the incremental proportional integral controller, line of sight guidance-incremental proportional integral controller with human driving experience initial control parameters, line of sight guidance-incremental proportional integral controller with random initial control parameters, and elitist strategies genetic algorithm-line of sight guidance-incremental proportional integral controller with human driving experience initial control parameters manifest evidently that the proposed elitist strategies genetic algorithm-line of sight guidance-incremental proportional integral controller with human driving experience initial control parameters has almost no steady-state error, no overshoot, and short settling time. Field results show that ratio of required compaction to actual compaction once achieves 100%, ratio of required compaction to actual compaction twice achieves 94.6%, and compaction repeatability index achieves 35%.