Modeling and control of nonlinear unmanned ground all terrain vehicle

An unmanned ground all terrain vehicle (UGATV) is mechanized equipment that moves across the any surface of the ground (terrain) without intervention of human. Being autonomous in nature, UGATVs are capable of operating over a wide variety of terrain, operating condition. Hence robust and precise control of UGATV is required. For developing a robust control strategy it is necessary to have an accurate mathematical model of UGATV. In this paper, nonlinear mathematical model of UGATV for straight and turning motion is presented and is implemented in MATLAB environment with various subsystems. Thereafter transfer function model of UGATV is obtained by linearizing. Using this linearized transfer function model conventional proportional integral derivative (PID) controller are designed and applied to nonlinear model of UGATV. Simulation results are generated for various transient conditions and disturbance levels.