Title: Robust steering control for mobile-rack vehicles

Authors: Boc Minh Hung; Sam-Sang You; Sang-Do Lee; Hwan-Seong Kim

Addresses: Division of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan, 49112, South Korea ' Division of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan, 49112, South Korea ' Division of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan, 49112, South Korea ' Division of Logistics, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan, 49112, South Korea

Abstract: To achieve precise navigation of mobile rack vehicle (MRV), the vehicle controller should have good adaptability to cope with vehicle parametric perturbations under noises and disturbances. Dynamical behaviours are mainly affected by the variations of vehicle with loadings/unloading, speed, and cornering stiffness. Therefore the control system must guarantee robust stability and performance against those dynamic uncertainties. Moreover, the controller order has been significantly reduced for real implementation and it still can provide the dynamic ability without performance degradation to attenuate noises and disturbances in the harsh warehouse environments. The dynamic performance with reduced-order controller is evaluated over a wide range of parameter variations while achieving positioning precision against various uncertainties. The presented autonomous vehicles can be utilised to guarantee smart warehouse system based on robust control synthesis. Finally, the smart MRV system provides future potential to reduce operation costs and improve autonomous logistics technology with safety.

Keywords: MRV; mobile-rack vehicle; autonomous logistics; vehicle dynamics; uncertainty; reduced-order controller; robust control synthesis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2020.110353

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2020 Vol.34 No.2, pp.90 - 102

Received: 16 Jan 2019
Accepted: 31 Jan 2020
Published online: 15 Oct 2020 *

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