AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE USING FUZZY CONTROL

An autonomous vehicle controls the steering of the vehicle on a road by fuzzy control. A camera forms an image of the road, and an image processor processes the image to calculate the deviation dx between a plurality of reference points on a road and the direction in which the vehicle is traveling. Each reference point is associated with a visual point on the road ahead of the vehicle. The product of the deviation dx for each visual point and a membership function .mu. indicating the degree of importance attached to the visual point is calculated, and a total deviation equal to the sum of the products is calculated. The steering of the vehicle is controlled on the basis of the total deviation. The membership functions .mu. are varied in accordance with the time rate of change of the deviations dx.