Practical prescribed time control for tracked mobile robots with coupled actuator failure

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This paper considers the practical prescribed time (PPT) trajectory tracking problem for tracked mobile robots (TMRs) with time-varying actuator failures in off-road scenarios. A new system model, which is suitable for TMRs under time-varying actuator failures and uneven road surfaces, is established. Firstly, a novel PPT control method is proposed by constructing a time and space dependent amplifier, which achieves faster convergence than existing methods during transient processes. Next, a virtual controller is designed for TMR kinematics to achieve PPT trajectory tracking based on this novel PPT control method. Finally, considering that TMR dynamics with time-varying actuator faults is an input-coupled MIMO system that does not meet the existing controllability conditions, a controller pre-allocation method is proposed to achieve fault-tolerant control. Stability analysis indicates that the system can achieve the preset trajectory tracking accuracy within the settling time regardless of initial conditions and parameters within the physically possible domain. Furthermore, the tracking error will asymptotically converge to zero by designing an adaptive controller using the proposed norm-like function. Both numerical simulation and physical experiments are employed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control methodology. Experimental video can be accessed through the link https://youtu.be/vC7oVzIuG9Q.