Road curvature estimation for vehicle lane departure detection using a robust Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy observer

In this paper, a lane departure detection method is studied and evaluated via a professional vehicle dynamics software. Based on a robust fuzzy observer designed with unmeasurable premise variables with unknown inputs, the road curvature is estimated and compared with the vehicle trajectory curvature. The difference between the two curvatures is used by the proposed algorithm as the first driving risk indicator. To reduce false alarms and take into account the driver corrections, a second driving risk indicator is considered, which is based on the steering dynamics, and it gives the time to the lane keeping. The used nonlinear model deduced from the vehicle lateral dynamics and a vision system is represented by an uncertain Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model. Taking into account the unmeasured variables, an unknown input fuzzy observer is then proposed. Synthesis conditions of the proposed fuzzy observer are formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities using Lyapunov method. The proposed approach is evaluated under different driving scenarios using a software simulator. Simulation results show good efficiency of the proposed method.