Trajectory-following of a 4WID-4WIS vehicle via feedforward–backstepping sliding-mode control

Abstract

Realisation of high-precision trajectory tracking is the key technology to achieve unmanned driving, which has an important impact on vehicle handling stability, safety and comfort. However, many confounding factors seriously restrict tracking performance and pose a great challenge to the design of the controller for tracking the desired trajectory. A comprehensive method that combines feedforward and backstepping sliding mode control is proposed for a four-wheel independent driving–four-wheel independent steering (4WID-4WIS) vehicle, which has the advantages of over-coupling, multiple degrees of freedom and flexible operation. The desired value is the target for the feedforward output of the controller, and the backstepping sliding mode control is used to overcome all kinds of disturbances. A mature and reliable Luenberger observer is designed to achieve good trajectory tracking performance for reducing some sensors. The proposed method is verified via MATLAB/Simulink simulation, which proved that the method has an excellent trajectory tracking performance.