Control systems for controlling a vehicle within a region to be traveled; CLOSED LOOP VEHICLE CONTROL SYSTEM; METHODS FOR CONTROLLING A VEHICLE AND VEHICLE CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR AIDING VEHICLE CONTROL

摘要

A vehicle control system having a controller and a spatial database adapted to provide spatial data to the controller at control speed. The spatial data provided from the spatial database to the controller can be any kind of data or information that has some relationship or association with real world geographical location, or if it is stored somehow with reference to geographical location. The spatial data received by the controller from the database forms at least part of the control inputs that the controller operates on to control the vehicle. The fact that the controller operates directly on information that is inherently associated with real world geographic location represents a change in thinking compared with existing vehicle control systems. In particular, it means that the control system of the present invention thinks directly in terms of spatial location. A vehicle control system in accordance with one particular embodiment of the invention comprises a task path generator, a spatial database, at least one external spatial data receiver, a vehicle attitude compensation module, a position error generator, a controller, and actuators to control the vehicle.