Drifting in the Future: Stabilizing Path Following Drifting on High-Latency Vehicle Systems

2026-06-26

AI Summary

Achieving stable autonomous drifting in mass-produced internal combustion engine sports cars is highly challenging due to significant actuator delays (>250 ms) and mechanically coupled axles. This work proposes a novel control framework that compensates for powertrain response lag through a delay predictor, explicitly models differential coupling effects, and integrates braking strategies to stabilize vehicle speed. The approach enables, for the first time, robust autonomous circular and figure-eight drifting on a production vehicle with an internal combustion engine, achieving lateral path tracking errors below 1.1 meters and sideslip angle overshoot under 0.06 radians. By effectively suppressing oscillations and accurately tracking reference trajectories, the method overcomes the limitations imposed by high actuator latency and mechanical coupling in drift control.

Abstract

Autonomously controlling and handling a vehicle at and beyond its stability limit is a mathematically and computationally demanding task. Prior demonstrations of automated drifting have been limited to research platforms with instantaneous torque delivery and independently actuated wheels, leaving their applicability to production vehicles with actuator latencies and mechanically coupled axles uncertain. To overcome these issues, we design a predictor to compensate for powertrain delays, develop a revised control formulation to accommodate higher actuation latencies as well as a differential coupling on the driven axle, and introduce brake-based velocity stabilization. This paper presents the controller framework, the model extensions, and real-world experimental results. We observe that our controller enables a production sports car with a combustion engine to robustly sustain circular and figure-eight drifts, limiting lateral error to 1.1 m and sideslip overshoot to 0.06 rad despite actuator delays exceeding 250 ms, while mitigating oscillations and maintaining stable path and sideslip tracking. In conclusion, our results establish that autonomous drifting is feasible on production-ready vehicles, opening pathways to advanced safety systems capable of stabilizing cars in scenarios where traditional control fails.

Problem

• autonomous drifting
• actuator latency
• path following
• vehicle stability
• high-latency systems

Innovation

• high-latency control
• autonomous drifting
• actuator delay compensation
• brake-based stabilization
• production vehicle