Innovative approaches to the lateral control problem in cars

Cars represent the primary means of passenger transport in the world and road accidents are one of the mainspring of premature human death. Although, a decrease in the number of road deaths is observed throughout the last years. Technology advances in vehicle dynamics control are considered one of the reasons for this trend: the automotive industry is transforming, by becoming software intensive rather than mechanically intensive. Road vehicles are nowadays very complex systems, composed of several subsystem which are often interacting among each other. Although each module is responsible for a specific function, all of the subsystems influence the vehicle dynamic behaviour and, perhaps more importantly, the quality of the driving experience which is perceived by the driver and passengers, in terms of both performance and safety. The research studies of this Thesis describe innovative approaches to the lateral control problem in cars. The derived argumentations are human-oriented: they assort and embrace relevant perspectives on the lateral control question entailing sensibility over passengers safety, over the attainment of high-performance dynamical car behaviour, but also over the ecological burden. Throughout the discussion, multiple aspects which comprehend different layers of the problem are investigated and integrated. Placing in nowadays original core research on the subject, some of the studies are re-intepreted in an autonomous driving framework, though most of them mainly being conceived for the operation in all driving settings. Contemplated theorethical and applicative advances are endorsed by experimental and simulation studies. Concerned vehicle investigations include hybrid vehicles eco-routing, electrification of driving users, data-driven MIMO nonlinear control steering input solution, sideslip angle and longitudinal speed estimation, semi-active suspension control.