Patent ID: 7191061

Claim:
A vehicular guidance method comprising: providing a user interface using which data can be input to establish a contour for a vehicle to follow, the user interface further configured to receive information from a differential global positioning system (DGPS); determining cross track and offset data using information from the DGPS, using a master controller; generating control values, using at least vehicular kinematics, the cross track and the offset data; and providing an output to control steering of the vehicle, using the control values, in a direction to follow the established contour while attempting to minimize the cross track and the offset data, by: receiving control values from the master controller in a second controller; configuring the second controller to interface with a steering control system; and receiving steering commands from the second controller at the steering control system to steer the vehicle; wherein, the second controller adjusts vehicular steering, and vehicular turn is computed using the equation: vehicular turn= R k *((cross track− RG 1 )−(offset* RG 2 ))/velocity, where R k , RG 1 , and RG 2 are gains based upon velocity, cross track, and offset.