Path Following Control of Autonomous Ground Vehicle Based on Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode and Active Disturbance Rejection Control

Due to the strong nonlinearity, coupling characteristics, external disturbance, and complex driving conditions, it is difficult to establish an accurate mathematical model for the autonomous ground vehicle (AGV). This requires the AGV path following controller to have strong robustness. In this paper, a robust AGV path following control strategy that is based on nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) and active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is presented. First, the complex path following problem is simplified to a simple yaw angle tracking problem by constructing a desired yaw angle function that satisfies that the displacement deviation of AGV converges to zero when the actual yaw angle approaches the desired yaw angle. Second, an NTSM-ADRC controller is designed for the system, which uses the extended state observer to estimate and compensate the unmodeled dynamics and unknown external perturbations of the system in real time. In order to improve response characteristics of the controller, the nonlinear error feedback control law is designed by combining the NTSM and exponential approximation law. In contrast to the existing work, the improved controller can use the simple two-degree-of-freedom linear vehicle dynamic model to provide good performance in a range of driving conditions. Finally, the CarSim-Simulink simulation results of typical conditions show that the proposed control strategy can make the AGV follow the reference path quickly and accurately while ensuring the stability of the vehicle and has strong robustness.