Path following controller design using sliding mode control theory

In this paper, the problem of "path following" is addressed for a specific type of wheeled mobile robot. Two path following algorithms are developed and implemented by taking sliding mode control theory into consideration. First, an algorithm synthesizing the reference signal by the use of the position information is devised. Then, two sliding mode controllers are developed, one for the kinematic model and one for the dynamic model of the mobile robot. The reference signal synthesis method is generalized by including the coordinate transformation in the design. The algorithms are tested both by simulations and experiments for different reference paths. It is observed that the proposed techniques meet the predefined performance specifications satisfactorily.