Robust velocity sliding mode control of mobile wheeled inverted pendulum systems

There has been an increasing interest in a kind of underactuated mechanical systems, mobile wheeled inverted pendulum (MWIP) models, which are widely used in the field of autonomous robotics and intelligent vehicles. Robust velocity tracking problem of MWIP systems is investigated in this study. In the velocity control problem, model uncertainties accompany uncertain equilibriums, which make the controller design become more difficult. A sliding mode control (SMC) method based on a novel sliding surface is proposed for the systems, which are capable of handling both parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. By assuming the specially designed sliding surface, the proposed SMC controller is capable of eliminating the steady velocity tracking error. The asymptotical stability of the closed-loop system is achieved through selecting sliding surface parameters in terms of some rules. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is finally confirmed by numerical simulations.