Patent ID: 8694382

Claim:
A method for automatically guiding a vehicle, the method comprising: engaging an automatic guidance control system to steer a vehicle along a predetermined swath; determining a swath path configuration of the predetermined swath to be subsequently travelled by the vehicle; determining a cross track error for the vehicle relative to the predetermined swath; determining a rate of change of the cross track error; calculating a control parameter with the automatic guidance control system in response to the determined swath path configuration, the determined cross track error and the determined rate of change of the cross track error; generating a control signal to steer the vehicle based on the calculated control parameter; determining an operating condition for the vehicle; calculating a response limit for the calculated control parameter in response to the determined operating condition; adjusting the generated control signal by the calculated response limit; applying the adjusted control signal to the vehicle to steer the vehicle along the predetermined swath; wherein calculating a response limit comprises: (a) identifying a membership function for at least one determined operating condition; (b) calculating a degree of membership for the determined operating condition using the identified membership function; and (c) applying a fuzzy logic algorithm to determine the response limit based on the calculated degree of membership.