Robust h∞-fuzzy logic control for enhanced tracking performance of a wheeled mobile robot in the presence of uncertain nonlinear perturbations

Abstract

Motion control involving DC motors requires a closed-loop system with a suitable compensator if tracking performance with high precision is desired. In the case where structural model errors of the motors are more dominating than the effects from noise disturbances, accurate system modelling will be a considerable aid in synthesizing the compensator. The focus of this paper is on enhancing the tracking performance of a wheeled mobile robot (WMR), which is driven by two DC motors that are subject to model parametric uncertainties and uncertain deadzones. For the system at hand, the uncertain nonlinear perturbations are greatly induced by the time-varying power supply, followed by behaviour of motion and speed. In this work, the system is firstly modelled, where correlations between the model parameters and different input datasets as well as voltage supply are obtained via polynomial regressions. A robust H∞-fuzzy logic approach is then proposed to treat the issues due to the aforementioned perturbations. Via the proposed strategy, the H∞ controller and the fuzzy logic (FL) compensator work in tandem to ensure the control law is robust against the model uncertainties. The proposed technique was validated via several real-time experiments, which showed that the speed and path tracking performance can be considerably enhanced when compared with the results via the H∞ controller alone, and the H∞ with the FL compensator, but without the presence of the robust control law.