Trailer oscillation detection and compensation method for a vehicle and trailer combination

A control system for a vehicle pulling a trailer comprising:

• an oscillation detector generating a trailer oscillation signal as a function of an angular position of the trailer relative to the vehicle using a trailer sensor during forward motion of the vehicle;
• a vehicle dynamic control system operating at least one vehicle dynamic system by way of a dynamic control signal;
• a controller coupled to the oscillation detector and the dynamic control system, the controller comprising a neural network, a penalty function, and an associated trainer, the neural network programmed to output a weighted dynamic control signal to the vehicle dynamic control system in response to the oscillation signal and a weight function of the trainer, wherein the trainer initially supplies a weight function to the neural network and modifies the weight function communicated to the neural network in response to the penalty function during subsequent neural network outputs such that the penalty function is reduced when the dynamic control system mitigates detected trailer oscillation while the weight function of the trainer is retained and the penalty function is increased when the dynamic control system does not mitigate detected trailer oscillation while the weight function of the trainer is reduced.