# A New Path-Tracking Algorithm for Forward and Reverse Maneuvers of Tractor-Trailers

- Source: arXiv cs.RO
- Published: 2026-10-27T04:00:00.000Z
- RoboHot: https://robohot.news/en/items/bpd8irxzuqae3s9clm956qjoo
- Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21718

## Summary

The paper proposes a path-tracking algorithm for articulated vehicles with a single trailer. It applies a lateral control law at the trailer level and makes short-horizon predictive adjustments to the tractor steering angle, so that both forward and reverse motion converge stably to the target path. The method is geometry-based and requires no per-vehicle calibration or training. In a high-fidelity physics simulation, the steady-state or final lateral error on straight-line, circular-arc, and reverse docking trajectories was 0.02–0.05 m. The authors tested it on a small-scale tractor-trailer robot, with the controller running on a low-cost microcontroller; under about 200 ms of pose-detection latency, the lateral error in repeated reverse docking was below 13 mm.