This paper proposes a dual-observer-aided sliding mode control (DOA–SMC) framework for fault-tolerant trajectory tracking of nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots (NWMRs) subject to actuator faults and external disturbances. Unlike conventional observer-based SMC or fault-tolerant control schemes [14] [24], [53], [65], [66], which addressed either disturbance compensation or partial fault estimation separately, the proposed scheme integrates velocity reconstruction and actuator fault diagnosis within a unified control architecture. The key contribution is a dual-observer structure that couples a high-gain observer for unmeasured velocity reconstruction and slip disturbance compensation with a fault observer for real-time actuator degradation detection. These observer outputs are adaptively fused into a nonsingular sliding mode controller to ensure robust tracking performance under simultaneous multi-actuator faults and model uncertainties. A composite Lyapunov function is constructed to prove the uniform ultimate boundedness (UUB) of all closed-loop signals, thereby guaranteeing global stability of the coupled observer–controller system. Simulations demonstrate a 10% reduction in RMSE and over 60% improvement in integral error indices (IAE, ISE) compared to conventional B–SMC and HiGO–SMC baselines. The proposed DOA–SMC method provides a reliable and disturbance-compensated fault-tolerant control solution, enhancing the safety and robostness of autonomous mobile robots in industrial settings.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Ho et al. (2025) studied this question.