Robust Lateral Stabilization Control of In-Wheel-Motor-Driven Mobile Robots via Active Disturbance Suppression Approach

Due to the praiseworthy maneuverability and actuation flexibility, the in-wheel-motor-driven mobile robots (IWMD-MR) are widely employed in various industrial fields. However, the active estimation and rejection of unknown disturbances/uncertainties remain a tough work for formulating a stable lateral motion controller. To address the challenge, this paper proposes a robust lateral stabilization control (RLSC) scheme for the developed IWMD-MR by designing an active disturbance suppression mechanism. The distinctive features of the proposed RLSC method are threefold: (i) With a fuzzy estimator, a modified super-twisting sliding mode method is designed to eliminate the system perturbations and time-varying lumped disturbances in an active manner; (ii) The resultant system trajectory is forced into a bounded switching region within finite time, which can be maintained therein for subsequent periods; (iii) Employing the Lyapunov function, new adaption rules for multivariable gains are derived to preserve the lateral motion stability and robustness. Finally, under the direct yaw moment control framework, simulation experiments of real-life IWMD-MR are offered to verify the effectiveness of the presented RLSC method.