Robust flatness-based control of an AGV under varying load and friction conditions

This paper presents the control strategy adopted to ensure low jerk variations in path tracking operations of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in industrial environments. The system is focused on robustness, performance and ease configuration of the maneuvers. Robustness is improved by combining algebraic techniques for robust intelligent feedback control with differential flatness. Besides, it is easily configurable by the definition of a velocity profile decoupled of geometric path. Some simulated results show the dramatic improvement with respect to more standard flatness-based controllers.