Title: Sliding mode avoidance in passively articulated vehicles

Authors: Dejan Djukic

Addresses: SEAT, Massey University, Private Bag 756, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract: The advantages of both structural simplicity and low resistance to movement are combined in passively articulated vehicles with independently powered wheels. The presence of the articulation in a vehicle enables it to move on straight or circular trajectories in the pure rolling mode, while the sliding mode motion may occur during the transition between the straight and the circular trajectory segments. Certain difficulty of steering arises from the passivity of the articulation, which requires that the steering must be achieved exclusively through the differences in wheel velocities. This paper studies the movement of a vehicle with one passive articulation and two axles, having a total of four independently powered wheels, along straight and circular paths, and, in particular, it studies the condition of the pure rolling mode movement during the transition between straight and circular trajectory segments. The emphasis in this study is given to avoidance of the sliding mode motion, which has been achieved through a non-linear feedback method for wheel velocity control.

Keywords: articulated vehicles; passive articulation; rolling; sliding mode avoidance; trajectory control; nonlinear feedback; wheel velocity control.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2010.030208

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2010 Vol.8 No.1/2/3/4, pp.319 - 329

Published online: 11 Dec 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article