A Virtual Rider for Motorcycles: An Approach Based on Optimal Control and Maneuver Regulation

Recently developed optimization and nonlinear control strategies are applied to drive a multi-body motorcycle model along a specified path with an associated velocity profile. The resulting control scheme is based on three main pillars: a dynamic inversion procedure to compute the input-state trajectories corresponding to a desired maneuvering task, an inverse optimal control heuristic for designing closed loop dynamics, and a maneuver regulation controller to overcome limitations of standard trajectory tracking scheme. The controller (virtual rider) is implemented on a commercial simulation software. Simulation results are presented.