Finite-time tracking control of nth-order chained-form non-holonomic systems in the presence of disturbances

This paper addresses the problem of finite-time tracking controller design for nth-order chained-form non-holonomic systems in the presence of unknown disturbances. To this aim, a generalized disturbance observer based controller is proposed and combined with a recursive terminal sliding mode approach which guarantees finite-time convergence of the disturbance observer dynamic. By introducing a time varying transformation and introducing a new control law, the existence of the sliding around the recursive terminal sliding mode surfaces is guaranteed. Finally, the proposed approach is applied for a wheeled mobile robot with a fourth-order chained-form non-holonomic model. The simulation results demonstrate the desirable and robust tracking performance of the proposed approach in the presence of unknown disturbance. (C) 2016 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.