Vehicle sideslip estimation via kernel-based LPV identification: Theory and experiments

Many vehicle control systems depend on the body sideslip angle, but robust and cost-effective direct measurement of this angle is yet to be achieved for production vehicles. Estimation from indirect measurements is thus the only viable option. In the paper, a sideslip estimator is obtained through the identification of a linear parameter varying (LPV) model. Although inspired by physical insights into the vehicle lateral dynamics, the structure of the LPV estimator is not parametrized beforehand. Instead, the estimator is learned by means of a state-of-the-art non-parametric method for linear parameter varying identification, namely least-squares support vector machines (LS-SVM). Its performance is assessed over an extensive and heterogeneous set of experimental data, showing the effectiveness of the proposed estimator.