Finite time tracking control of a nonholonomic mobile robot with external disturbances

This paper investigates finite time tracking control problem of a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot in dynamic model with external disturbances, where a kind of finite time disturbance observer is introduced to estimate the external disturbances. First of all, the resulting tracking error dynamic is transformed into two subsystems, i.e., a third-order subsystem and a second-order subsystem for the mobile robot. Then, the two subsystem are discussed respectively, continuous finite time disturbance observers and finite time tracking control laws are designed for the mobile robot. Rigorous proof shows that the mobile robot can track the desired trajectory in finite time. Simulation example illustrates the effectiveness of our method.