Path Tracking Controller Design of Automated Parking Systems via NMPC with an Instructible Solution

Parking difficulties have become a social issue that people have to solve.Automated parking system is practicable for quick par operations without a driver which can also greatly reduces the probability of parking accidents.The paper proposes a Lyapunov-based nonlinear model predictive controller embedding an instructable solution which is generated by the modified rear-wheel feedback method(RF-LNMPC)in order to improve the overall path tracking accuracy in parking conditions.Firstly,A discrete-time RF-LNMPC considering the position and attitude of the parking vehicle is proposed to increase the success rate of automated parking effectively.Secondly,the RF-LNMPC problem with a multi-objective cost function is solved by the Interior-Point Optimization,of which the iterative initial values are described as the instructable solutions calculated by combining modified rear-wheel feedback to improve the performance of local optimal solution.Thirdly,the details on the computation of the terminal constraint and terminal cost for the linear time-varying case is presented.The closed-loop stability is verified via Lyapunov techniques by considering the terminal constraint and terminal cost theoretically.Finally,the proposed RF-LNMPC is implemented on a selfdriving Lincoln MKZ platform and the experiment results have shown improved performance in parallel and vertical parking conditions.The Monte Carlo analysis also demonstrates good stability and repeatability of the proposed method which can be applied in practical use in the near future.

Observer-Based Path Tracking Controller Design for Autonomous Ground Vehicles With Input Saturation

This paper investigates the problem of path tracking control for autonomous ground vehicles(AGVs),where the input saturation,system nonlinearities and uncertainties are considered.Firstly,the nonlinear path tracking system is formulated as a linear parameter varying(LPV)model where the variation of vehicle velocity is taken into account.Secondly,considering the noise effects on the measurement of lateral offset and heading angle,an observer-based control strategy is proposed,and by analyzing the frequency domain characteristics of the derivative of desired heading angle,a finite frequency H_∞index is proposed to attenuate the effects of the derivative of desired heading angle on path tracking error.Thirdly,sufficient conditions are derived to guarantee robust H_∞performance of the path tracking system,and the calculation of observer and controller gains is converted into solving a convex optimization problem.Finally,simulation examples verify the advantages of the control method proposed in this paper.

A Back-stepping Based Trajectory Tracking Controller for a Non-chained Nonholonomic Spherical Robot

Spherical robot has good static and dynamic stability, which provides it with strong viability in hostile environment, but the lack of effective control methods has hindered its application and development. This article deals with the dynamic trajectory tracking problem of the spherical robot BHQ-2 designed for unmanned environment exploration. The dynamic model of the spherical robot is established with a simplified Boltzmann-Hamel equation, based on which a trajectory tracking controller is designed by using the back-stepping method. The convergence of the controller is proved with the Lyapunov stability theory. Numerical simulations show that with the controller the robot can globally and asymptotically track desired trajectories, both linear and circular.

Optimal Tracking Controller Design for a Small Scale Helicopter

A model helicopter is more difficult to control than its full scale counterpart. This is due to its greater sensitivity to control inputs and disturbances as well as higher bandwidth of dynamics. This work is focused on designing practical tracking controller for a small scale helicopter following predefined trajectories. A tracking controller based on optimal control theory is synthesized as a part of the development of an autonomous helicopter. Some issues with regards to control constraints are addressed. The weighting between state tracking performance and control power expenditure is analyzed. Overall performance of the control design is evaluated based on its time domain histories of trajectories as well as control inputs.

A new nonlinear output tracking controller via output-feedback

In this paper, the output tracking control is investigated for a class of nonlinear systems when only output is available for feedback. Based on the multivariable analog of circle criterion, an observer is first introduced. Then, the observer-based output tracking controller is constructively designed by using the integral backstepping approach together with completing square. It is shown that, under relatively mild conditions, all the closed-loop signals are uniformly bounded. Meanwhile the system output asymptotically tracks the desired output. A simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

Multi-rate tracking controller analysis and design for target tracking systems

As the sampling rates of the inner loop and the outer loop of the target tracking control system are different,a typical digital multi-rate control system was formed.If the traditional single-rate design method was applied,the low sampling rate loop will seriously impact the dynamical characteristic of the system.After analyzing and calculating the impact law of the low sampling rate loop to the bandwidth and the stability of the tracking system,a kind of multi-rate control system design method was introduced.Corresponding to the different sampling rates of the inner loop and the outer loop,the multi-rate control strategy was constituted by a high sampling rate sub-controller and a low sampling rate sub-controller.The two sub-controllers were designed separately and connected by means of the sampling rate converter.The low sampling rate controller determined the response rapidity of the system,while the high sampling rate controller applied additionally effective control outputs to the system during a sampling interval of the low sampling rate controller.With the introduced high and low sampling rates sub-controllers,the tracking control system can achieve the same performance as a single-rate controller with high sampling rate,yet it works under a much lower sampling rate.The simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the introduced multi-rate control design method.It reduces the settling time by 5 times and the over shoot by 4 times compared with the PID control.

Adaptive Trajectory Tracking Control for Nonholonomic Wheeled Mobile Robots:A Barrier Function Sliding Mode Approach

The trajectory tracking control performance of nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots(NWMRs)is subject to nonholonomic constraints,system uncertainties,and external disturbances.This paper proposes a barrier function-based adaptive sliding mode control(BFASMC)method to provide high-precision,fast-response performance and robustness for NWMRs.Compared with the conventional adaptive sliding mode control,the proposed control strategy can guarantee that the sliding mode variables converge to a predefined neighborhood of origin with a predefined reaching time independent of the prior knowledge of the uncertainties and disturbances bounds.Another advantage of the proposed algorithm is that the control gains can be adaptively adjusted to follow the disturbances amplitudes thanks to the barrier function.The benefit is that the overestimation of control gain can be eliminated,resulting in chattering reduction.Moreover,a modified barrier function-like control gain is employed to prevent the input saturation problem due to the physical limit of the actuator.The stability analysis and comparative experiments demonstrate that the proposed BFASMC can ensure the prespecified convergence performance of the NWMR system output variables and strong robustness against uncertainties/disturbances.

Tracking controller design for air handling units with uncertainties

As an important component of the heating,ventilating and air conditioning(HVAC)systems,air handling units(AHUs)are responsible for regulating indoor temperature and humidity.In this paper,a multivariable nonlinear dynamic model of the AHUs with unknown strength of the humidity source is considered,and an improved backstepping controller is proposed to realize the tracking objective of the indoor temperature,relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentration.Firstly,the original system is represented in simplified state space form,and then the state transformation is introduced with a gain to overcome the difficulty caused by the unknown strength of the humidity source.Then,the improved backstepping controller is designed in a step-by-step way.Moreover,the stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed in detail.Finally,we consider the case that the AHUs work in summer of Jinan,China,as an example.The simulation results show the effectiveness of the controller.Meanwhile,the performance of the improved backstepping controller are compared with that of the decoupled sliding mode and PID controllers.

Guaranteed Cost Attitude Tracking Control for Uncertain Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Under Safety Constraints

In this paper,guaranteed cost attitude tracking con-trol for uncertain quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle(QUAV)under safety constraints is studied.First,an augmented system is constructed by the tracking error system and reference system.This transformation aims to convert the tracking control prob-lem into a stabilization control problem.Then,control barrier function and disturbance attenuation function are designed to characterize the violations of safety constraints and tolerance of uncertain disturbances,and they are incorporated into the reward function as penalty items.Based on the modified reward function,the problem is simplified as the optimal regulation problem of the nominal augmented system,and a new Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation is developed.Finally,critic-only rein-forcement learning algorithm with a concurrent learning tech-nique is employed to solve the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equa-tion and obtain the optimal controller.The proposed algorithm can not only ensure the reward function within an upper bound in the presence of uncertain disturbances,but also enforce safety constraints.The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by the numerical simulation.

Practical Prescribed Time Tracking Control With Bounded Time-Varying Gain Under Non-Vanishing Uncertainties

This paper investigates the prescribed-time control(PTC) problem for a class of strict-feedback systems subject to non-vanishing uncertainties. The coexistence of mismatched uncertainties and non-vanishing disturbances makes PTC synthesis nontrivial. In this work, a control method that does not involve infinite time-varying gain is proposed, leading to a practical and global prescribed time tracking control solution for the strict-feedback systems, in spite of both the mismatched and nonvanishing uncertainties. Different from methods based on control switching to avoid the issue of infinite control gain that involves control discontinuity at the switching point, in our method a softening unit is exclusively included to ensure the continuity of the control action. Furthermore, in contrast to most existing prescribed-time control works where the control scheme is only valid on a finite time interval, in this work, the proposed control scheme is valid on the entire time interval. In addition, the prior information on the upper or lower bound of gi is not in need,enlarging the applicability of the proposed method. Both the theoretical analysis and numerical simulation confirm the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.

Practical prescribed-time fuzzy tracking control for uncertain nonlinear systems with time-varying actuators faults

The paper investigates the practical prescribed-time fuzzy tracking control problem for a category of nonlinear system subject to time-varying actuator faults.The presence of unknown nonlinear dynamics and actuator faults makes achieving tracking control within a prescribed-time challenging.To tackle this issue,we propose a novel practical prescribed-time fuzzy tracking control strategy,which is independent of the initial state of the system and does not rely on precise modeling of the system and actuators.We apply the approximation capabilities of fuzzy logic systems to handle the unknown nonlinear functions and unidentified actuator faults in the system.The piecewise controller and adaptive law constructed based on piecewise prescribed time-varying function and backstepping technique method establish the theoretical framework of practical prescribed-time tracking control,and extend the range of prescribed-time tracking control to infinity.Regardless of the initial conditions,the proposed control strategy can guarantee that all signals remain uniformly bounded within the practical prescribed time in the presence of unknown nonlinear item and time-varying actuator faults.Simulation example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

An iterative linear quadratic regulator based trajectory tracking controller for wheeled mobile robot

We present an iterative linear quadratic regulator(ILQR) method for trajectory tracking control of a wheeled mobile robot system.The proposed scheme involves a kinematic model linearization technique,a global trajectory generation algorithm,and trajectory tracking controller design.A lattice planner,which searches over a 3D(x,y,θ) configuration space,is adopted to generate the global trajectory.The ILQR method is used to design a local trajectory tracking controller.The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in simulation and experiment with a significantly asymmetric differential drive robot.The performance of the local controller is analyzed and compared with that of the existing linear quadratic regulator(LQR) method.According to the experiments,the new controller improves the control sequences(v,ω) iteratively and produces slightly better results.Specifically,two trajectories,'S' and '8' courses,are followed with sufficient accuracy using the proposed controller.

A modified direct adaptive robust motion trajectory tracking controller of a pneumatic system

In this study, we developed and tested a high-precision motion trajectory tracking controller of a pneumatic cylinder driven by four costless on/off solenoid valves rather than by a proportional directional control valve. The relationship between the pulse width modulation(PWM) of a signal's duty cycle and control law was determined experimentally, and a mathematical model of the whole system established. Owing to unknown disturbances and unmodeled dynamics, there are considerable uncertain nonlinearities and parametric uncertainties in this pneumatic system. A modified direct adaptive robust controller(DARC) was constructed to cope with these issues. The controller employs a gradient type adaptation law based on discontinuous projection mapping to guarantee that estimated unknown model parameters stay within a known bounded region, and uses a deterministic robust control strategy to weaken the effects of unmodeled dynamics, disturbances, and parameter estimation errors. By using discontinuous projection mapping, the parameter adaptation law and the robust control law can be synthesized separately. A recursive backstepping technology is applied to account for unmatched model uncertainties. Kalman filters were designed separately to estimate the motion states and the derivative of the intermediate control law in synthesizing the deterministic robust control law. Experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

A generalized trajectory tracking controller for robot manipulators with bounded inputs

A generalized controller based on stability theory of singularly perturbed systems is proposed,to deal with the problem of bounded actuator inputs in robot trajectory tracking control.The saturation function with error-gain matrix is applied in the torque control law,which ensures the upper bound of torque inputs in any given limited range.Through appropriately setting the entries of the error-gain matrix,the tracking performance can be improved.Moreover,a pseudo signal is generated from a linear filter to substitute for the actual velocity error,eliminating the need for velocity measurements.Finally,to verify the ef-fectiveness of the generalized controller,a new saturated controller with error-gain-contained arc tangent function is designed.Comparison experiments show that the proposed controller can strictly guarantee the bound of the torque inputs in situations with non-zero initial tracking errors,and gives a better tracking result than other controllers.

Tracking Control of Multi-Agent Systems Using a Networked Predictive PID Tracking Scheme

With the rapid development of network technology and control technology,a networked multi-agent control system is a key direction of modern industrial control systems,such as industrial Internet systems.This paper studies the tracking control problem of networked multi-agent systems with communication constraints,where each agent has no information on the dynamics of other agents except their outputs.A networked predictive proportional integral derivative(PPID)tracking scheme is proposed to achieve the desired tracking performance,compensate actively for communication delays,and simplify implementation in a distributed manner.This scheme combines the past,present and predictive information of neighbour agents to form a tracking error signal for each agent,and applies the proportional,integral,and derivative of the agent tracking error signal to control each individual agent.The criteria of the stability and output tracking consensus of multi-agent systems with the networked PPID tracking scheme are derived through detailed analysis on the closed-loop systems.The effectiveness of the networked PPID tracking scheme is illustrated via an example.

Cognitive Granular-Based Path Planning and Tracking for Intelligent Vehicle with Multi-Segment Bezier Curve Stitching

Unmanned vehicles are currently facing many difficulties and challenges in improving safety performance when running in complex urban road traffic environments,such as low intelligence and poor comfort perfor-mance in the driving process.The real-time performance of vehicles and the comfort requirements of passengers in path planning and tracking control of unmanned vehicles have attracted more and more attentions.In this paper,in order to improve the real-time performance of the autonomous vehicle planning module and the comfort requirements of passengers that a local granular-based path planning method and tracking control based on multi-segment Bezier curve splicing and model predictive control theory are pro-posed.Especially,the maximum trajectory curvature satisfying ride comfort is regarded as an important constraint condition,and the corresponding curvature threshold is utilized to calculate the control points of Bezier curve.By using low-order interpolation curve splicing,the planning computation is reduced,and the real-time performance of planning is improved,com-pared with one-segment curve fitting method.Furthermore,the comfort performance of the planned path is reflected intuitively by the curvature information of the path.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed control method is verified by the co-simulation platform built by MATLAB/Simulink and Carsim.The simulation results show that the path tracking effect of multi-segment Bezier curve fitting is better than that of high-order curve planning in terms of real-time performance and comfort.

Trajectory tracking control based on linear active disturbance rejection controller for 6-DOF robot manipulator

The trajectory tracking control for a 6-DOF robot manipulator with multiple inputs and outputs,non-linearity and strong coupling is studied.Firstly,a dynamical model for the 6-DOF robot manipulator is designed.From the view point of practical engineering,considering the model uncertainties and external disturbances,the robot manipulator is divided into 6 independent joint subsystems,and a linear active disturbance rejection controller(LADRC)is developed to track trajectory for each subsystem respectively.LADRC has few parameters that are easy to be adjusted in engineering.Linear expansion state observer(LESO)as the uncertainty observer is able to estimate the general uncertainties effectively.Eventually,the validity and robustness of the proposed method adopted in 6-DOF robot manipulator are demonstrated via numerical simulations and 6-DOF robot manipulator experiments,which is of practical value in engineering application.

Disturbance Observer-Based Safe Tracking Control for Unmanned Helicopters With Partial State Constraints and Disturbances

In this paper, a disturbance observer-based safe tracking control scheme is proposed for a medium-scale unmanned helicopter with rotor flapping dynamics in the presence of partial state constraints and unknown external disturbances. A safety protection algorithm is proposed to keep the constrained states within the given safe-set. A second-order disturbance observer technique is utilized to estimate the external disturbances. It is shown that the desired tracking performance of the controlled unmanned helicopter can be achieved with the application of the backstepping approach, dynamic surface control technique, and Lyapunov method. Finally, the availability of the proposed control scheme has been shown by simulation results.

Event-based performance guaranteed tracking control for constrained nonlinear system via adaptive dynamic programming method

An optimal tracking control problem for a class of nonlinear systems with guaranteed performance and asymmetric input constraints is discussed in this paper.The control policy is implemented by adaptive dynamic programming(ADP)algorithm under two event-based triggering mechanisms.It is often challenging to design an optimal control law due to the system deviation caused by asymmetric input constraints.First,a prescribed performance control technique is employed to guarantee the tracking errors within predetermined boundaries.Subsequently,considering the asymmetric input constraints,a discounted non-quadratic cost function is introduced.Moreover,in order to reduce controller updates,an event-triggered control law is developed for ADP algorithm.After that,to further simplify the complexity of controller design,this work is extended to a self-triggered case for relaxing the need for continuous signal monitoring by hardware devices.By employing the Lyapunov method,the uniform ultimate boundedness of all signals is proved to be guaranteed.Finally,a simulation example on a mass–spring–damper system subject to asymmetric input constraints is provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

ROBUST ADAPTIVE CONTROL SCHEME FOR IMPROVING LOW-SPEED PROFILE TRACKING PERFORMANCE OF HYBRID STEPPING MOTOR SERVO DRIVE

A robust adaptive control approach is presented to improve the performance of the control scheme proposed in the authors＇ previous work, aiming at producing a low ripple hybrid stepping motor servo drive for precision profile tracking at a low speed. In order to construct a completely integrated control design philosophy to reduce torque ripple and at the same time to enhance tracking performance, the properties of nonlinear uncertainties in the system dynamics are uncovered, and then incorporated into the design of the controller. The system uncertainties concerned with ripple dynamics and other external disturbances are composed of two categories. The first category of uncertainties with linear parameterization arising from the detention effect is dealt with by the wellknown adaptive control method. A robust adaptive method is used to deal with the second category of uncertainties resulting from the non-sinusoidal flux distribution. The μ-modification scheme is used to cease parameter adaptation by the robust adaptive control law, thus ensuring that the trajectory tracking error asymptotically converges to a pre-specified boundary. Experiments are performed with a typical hybrid stepping motor to test its profile tracking accuracy. Results confirm the proposed control scheme.