A drift-driving maneuver is a control technique used by an expert driver to control a vehicle along a sharply curved path or slippery road. This study develops a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) method for the autonomous vehicle to perform a drift maneuver and generate the datasets necessary for training the deep neural network(DNN)-based drift controller. In general, the NMPC method is based on numerical optimization which is difficult to run in real-time. By replacing the previously designed NMPC method with the proposed DNN-based controller, we avoid the need for complex numerical optimization of the vehicle control, thereby reducing the computational load. The performance of the developed data-driven drift controller is verified through realistic simulations that included drift scenarios. Based on the results of the simulations, the DNN-based controller showed similar tracking performance to the original nonlinear model predictive controller; moreover, the DNN-based controller can demonstrate stable computation time, which is very important for the safety critical control objective such as drift maneuver.

Nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) is based on a numerical optimization method considering the target system dynamics as constraints. This optimization process requires large amount of computation power and the computation time is often unpredictable which may cause the control update rate to overrun. Therefore, the performance must be carefully balanced against the computational time. To solve the computation problem, we propose a data-based control technique based on a deep neural network (DNN). The DNN is trained with closed-loop driving data of an NMPC. The proposed "DNN control technique based on NMPC driving data" achieves control characteristics comparable to those of a well-tuned NMPC within a reasonable computation period, which is verified with an experimental scaled-car platform and realistic numerical simulations.