Spline-Based Minimum-Curvature Trajectory Optimization for Autonomous Racing

09/17/2023

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by   Haoru Xue, et al.

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We propose a novel B-spline trajectory optimization method for autonomous racing. We consider the unavailability of sophisticated race car and race track dynamics in early-stage autonomous motorsports development and derive methods that work with limited dynamics data and additional conservative constraints. We formulate a minimum-curvature optimization problem with only the spline control points as optimization variables. We then compare the current state-of-the-art method with our optimization result, which achieves a similar level of optimality with a 90 and in addition offers mathematical smoothness guarantee and flexible manipulation options. We concurrently reduce the problem computation time from seconds to milliseconds for a long race track, enabling future online adaptation of the previously offline technique.