Robust Adaptive Terminal Sliding Mode Control of an Omnidirectional Mobile Robot for Aircraft Skin Inspection

In this paper, an adaptive terminal sliding mode control scheme for an omnidirectional mobile robot is proposed as a robust solution to the trajectory tracking control problem. The omnidirectional mobile robot has a double-frame structure, which adsorbes on the aircraft surface by suction cups. The major difficulties lie in the existence of nonholonomic constraints, system uncertainty and external disturbance. To overcome these difficulties, the kinematic model is established, the dynamic model is derived by using Lagrange method. Then, a robust adaptive terminal sliding mode (RATSM) control scheme is proposed to solve the problem of state stabilization and trajectory tracking. In order to enhance the robustness of the system, an adaptive online estimation law is designed to overcome the total uncertainty. Subsequently, the asymptotic stability of the system without total uncertainty is proved with basis on Lyapunov theory, and the system considering total uncertainty can converge to the domain containing the origin. Simulation results are given to show the verification and validation of the proposed control scheme.