Feedback preprocessed unmanned ground vehicle network-based controller characterization

This paper characterizes the performance of a feedback preprocessor (FP) that is used to alleviate the effect of the delay time on an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) path tracking problem in network-based control (NBC) environment. The FP estimates the UGV state in order to compensate for the effect of a constant time delay induced by the network. The FP technique can be implemented as an external module appending to an existing nonlinear control system without having to redesign the controller. This technique uses the plant dynamics to estimate the future state of the plant under network-based control. The overall NBC system performance is investigated via simulation in terms of UGV system dynamics responses and network time delay magnitudes. The approach and result in this paper can be used to estimate the performance of any similar UGV operating in an NBC environment. An intermediate parameter, UGV response time, may be used to relate the result in this paper to other UGV in general.