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OPEN Motion/force coordinated

trajectory tracking control
of nonholonomic wheeled mobile
robot via LMPC‑AISMC strategy
Minan Tang 1,3*, Kunxi Tang 1,3, Yaqi Zhang 1,3, Jiandong Qiu 2,3 & Xiaowei Chen 1,3
Nonholonomic constrained wheeled mobile robot (WMR) trajectory tracking requires the
enhancement of the ground adaptation capability of the WMR while ensuring its attitude tracking
accuracy, a novel dual closed-loop control structure is developed to implement this motion/force
coordinated control objective in this paper. Firstly, the outer-loop motion controller is presented
using Laguerre functions modified model predictive control (LMPC). Optimised solution condition is
introduced to reduce the number of LMPC solutions. Secondly, an inner-loop force controller based
on adaptive integral sliding mode control (AISMC) is constructed to ensure the desired velocity
tracking and output driving torques by combining second-order nonlinear extended state observer
(ESO) with the estimation of dynamic uncertainties and external disturbances during WMR travelling
process. Then, Lyapunov stability theory is utilised to guarantee the consistent final boundedness
of the designed controller. Finally, the system is numerically simulated and practically verified.
The results show that the double-closed-loop control strategy devised in this paper has better
control performance in terms of complex trajectory tracking accuracy, system resistance to strong
interference and computational timeliness, and is able to realise effective coordinated control of WMR
motion/force.

Keywords Wheeled mobile robot, Dual closed-loop, Model predictive control, Integral sliding mode control,
Extended state observer

WMR is widely used in the fields of logistics and transport, planetary exploration, emergency rescue, and agri-
cultural plant protection due to its simple structure, stable motion, and height self-adaptation1–5.Stable and
accurate trajectory tracking is the key for WMR to fulfil its mission. However, as a typical class of multiple-input
multiple-output systems subject to nonholonomic constraints, WMR does not satisfy the brockett ­condition6,7,
and thus the traditional linear system theory approach is difficult to address the WMR trajectory tracking
­problem8.Meanwhile the unavoidable disturbances and uncertainties in practical applications make the WMR
trajectory tracking control problem extremely c­ hallenging9.
In recent years, many scholars have carried out a lot of research work on WMR trajectory tracking con-
trol, introducing nonholonomic constraints at the system kinematic level. Adaptive neural network approaches
have been used to solve the problem of the difficulty of accurately obtaining the dynamic parameters of WMR
­systems10–12. Fuzzy logic is essential in handling the uncertainty and inaccuracy of WMR trajectory tracking,
and the L ­ iteratures13,14 advocate the use of fuzzy control for the smooth control of WMR trajectory tracking.An
adaptive sliding mode control method is used to develop a trajectory tracking controller for a mobile robot with
differential driving in the presence of unknown parameter variations and external d ­ isturbances15.But it is clear
that the above design of trajectory tracking controllers based purely on the kinematic model to achieve perfect
tracking is ­impractical16. Therefore, more and more researchers are shifting their attention from the design of
kinematic controllers to the integrated design of kinematic and dynamic controllers. There are two mainstream
research schemes, the first is hierarchical c­ ontrol17–20, and the second is dual closed-loop control, which is sig-
nificantly superior for nonlinear system control and is essentially a double feedback control s­ tructure21. A dual
control scheme is used to solve the trajectory tracking control of WMR in the existence of external disturbances

1
School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China. 2School
of Mechanical Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China. 3These authors contributed
equally: Minan Tang, Kunxi Tang, Yaqi Zhang, Jiandong Qiu and Xiaowei Chen. *email: [email protected]

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and unknown v­ ariables22,23. ­Literature24 combined the ideas of backstepping and sliding mode control to design
a dual closed-loop control structure that improves the trajectory tracking accuracy of WMR on a right-angled
road. It should be noted that most previous studies have ignored the physical limitations of the WMR itself, such
as actuator saturation. In general, when the position error of the WMR is relatively large, or when it is subjected
to violent disturbances, the controller will generate a large velocity in order to follow the reference trajectory as
quickly and stably as possible, which will generate a sudden change in velocity and thus cause a sudden change
in the torque of the driving motor. And when the actual position is close to the reference position, the change
in vehicle velocity will be relatively large, causing the output torque of the drive motor to be unstable. Therefore,
there is an urgent requirement to design a dual closed-loop control structure that can simultaneously consider
the kinematics and dynamics of the WMR to fulfil effective handling of the WMR system constraints and perfect
trajectory tracking.
Model predictive control (MPC) is an elegant approach to tackle constrained control problems and is now
widely used for the control of autonomous unmanned systems, such as underwater unmanned aerial vehicles
, autonomous surface vessels, autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles , and unmanned v­ ehicles25–28. It is clear
that MPC has an unrivalled innate advantage for the control of WMR, both in terms of control performance
(optimality) and ability to handle constraints. ­Literature29 emphasises the problem of fast nonlinear MPC-based
implementation of unmanned ground vehicles for tracking control in complex environments. L ­ iterature30 pro-
poses a fuzzy MPC to improve the operational stability of WMR trajectory tracking. I­ n31, a nonlinear distributed
MPC is applied to the cooperative formation control of WMR. I­ n32, the WMR trajectory tracking and obstacle
avoidance task is solved in a single optimisation problem using a nonlinear MPC. It is worth mentioning that
MPC requires the optimal control input sequence to be obtained by solving the optimal control project online
in a finite time domain at each sampling instant and applying the first value of the sequence to the system. This
implies a large amount of waste of limited computational resources, so how to reduce the computational amount
of MPC has become an important research topic. A self-triggered MPC strategy is used to reduce the solving
frequency of the MPC optimisation problem to some ­extent33. As a further research, an MPC scheme with adap-
tive prediction horizon and event triggering mechanism is proposed to reduce the computational burden of MPC
in terms of reducing the number of solution times of the optimal control problem and lowering the prediction
­level34. However, it is clear that the previous studies did not consider the reduction of the complexity of the sin-
gle optimisation solution, and for linear time-varying MPC, the computational complexity of the optimisation
problem solution increases exponentially with the increase of the prediction horizon and the control horizon.
Fortunately, the Laguerre functions allows the coefficients used in the MPC optimisation solution process to
be reduced to a fraction of the coefficients required by the usual ­process35. Therefore, an improved MPC with
Laguerre functions significantly reduces the number of optimisation variables and reduces the computational
effort of MPC single optimisation solution while guaranteeing the performance of trajectory tracking for self-
driving ­cars36. Therefore, we propose a motion controller based on the LMPC framework for the WMR outer-
loop kinematic model to further design the optimised solution conditions and reduce the optimised solution
frequency. A better trade-off between system control performance and computational resource saving is attained
to satisfy the “fast” systems such as WMR.
It is well known that dynamic disturbances are an important part of control system design, such as the
unavoidable ground friction disturbances to which WMR wheels are subjected, but unlike the nonholonomic
problem, such ground friction disturbances are in the form of forces that are related to the dynamics model.
Therefore, how to ensure attitude tracking accuracy under nonholonomic constraints and improve disturbances
adaptivity at the same time, ESO-based dynamics controller design is not an elegant solution. As an important
component of self-resilient control, ESO is often designed to estimate external and internal disturbances of
nonlinear ­systems37. ­Literature38 developed a friction-compensated sliding mode control scheme for an omni-
directional mobile robot based on reduced-order ESO, designing the controller by means of a dynamics model
with unknown friction; ­In39, a finite-time extended state observer has been investigated to improve the estimation
performance, which can estimate all states and the total disturbances of the system. In particular, sliding mode
control strategies are often combined with self-resilient control strategies to achieve good control performance
for nonlinear s­ ystems40, as opposed to integral sliding mode control (ISMC), which avoids the shortcomings
of the convergence phase of ordinary sliding mode control by solving for an appropriate initial position so that
the system has only a sliding phase. Therefore, it is characterised by fast convergence, robust performance and
high control a­ ccuracy41. ­Literature24 uses the integral sliding mode technique to design the dynamics controller
and two ESOs to estimate the external disturbance. It should be emphasised that in most of the literature, the
effectiveness of ESO is mostly based on third or higher order and its proof methods are cumbersome. It is also
considered that simple control strategies can not combine tracking accuracy with immunity, while complex
controllers consume too much ­energy42. Therefore, in the inner-loop, we try to propose a new second-order
nonlinear ESO convergence theory, based on which we develop the force controller under the ISMC strategy,
introducing an adaptive law to dynamically adjust the upper bound of the switching gain, thereby reducing the
controller jitter and enabling it to accurately track the desired velocity.
Inspired by the above studies, this paper devises a dual closed-loop control structure to implement the tra-
jectory tracking control of a nonholonomic WMR, where the outer-loop motion controller is used to internally
produce the desired velocity, and the inner-loop force controller accurately tracks the desired velocity and
produces the actual WMR driving torques, and the ESO performs the dynamic disturbances observation and
feedback compensation. The main contributions of this paper can be summarised as follows:

1. A novel dual closed-loop control structure is developed for coordinated trajectory tracking control of motion/
force subject to incomplete constraints WMR.

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2. The introduction of the Laguerre functions to optimise the MPC for the outer- loop motion controller reduces
the computational load of each step of the optimisation solution .The solution conditions of the optimisation
problem are also specified in order to reduce the number of optimisation problem solutions.
3. A force controller based on second-order nonlinear ESO with AISMC strategy is designed to achieve perfect
tracking of the desired velocity of the outer-loop and external integrated disturbances estimation.

The rest of the components of this paper are as follows. In “Preliminaries”, the kinematic and dynamic model of
the WMR with the centre of mass coinciding with the geometric centre is developed and the dual closed-loop
control structure designed in this paper is given. In “Motion controller”, the design of the outer-loop kinematic
controller is carried out. In “Force controller” , the design of the ESO is given together with the design of the
inner-loop force controller and the Lyapunov stability proofs are given. In “Experimental validation and discus-
sion”, numerical simulations and practical experiments are performed. And in “Conclusion”, drawing conclusions
and looking ahead to the future of research.

Preliminaries
Mathematical description of the WMR model
A typical WMR consists of two differential driving wheels and one driven omnidirectional wheel. In this paper,
we consider the WMR with the centre of mass coinciding with the geometric centre as shown in Fig. 1.The
vehicle coordinate system is denoted by {x̄, o, ȳ},while the Cartesian coordinate system is denoted by {X, O, Y }.
The centre of mass of the WMR and the midpoint of the line connecting the two driving wheels of the WMR are
defined by o. The radius of the driving wheels and half the distance between the two driving wheels are defined
by r and R, respectively, and ϑ is the robot heading angle.
Mark (x, y) as the coordinates of the centre of mass in the Cartesian coordinate system. Assuming that the
wheeled mobile robot does not slip laterally, i.e. it can not move in the direction of the driving wheel axis, the
robot’s velocity along the direction of the driving wheel axis is zero, and it satisfies the nonholonomic constraints
of pure rolling and no sliding as follows:
ẋ sin ϑ − ẏ cos ϑ = 0 (1)

M(q)q̈ + C(q, q̇)q̇ + F(q̇) + G(q) + τd = B(q)τ − AT (q) (2)

q̇ = �(q, η) = S(q)η (3)

where q = (x, y, ϑ)T ∈ ℜ3×1 is the position vector of the WMR under {X, O, Y } , η = (va , ωa ∈ )T ℜ2×1 is the
actual velocity vector va is the actual linear velocity and ωa is the actual angular velocity. τ = (τl , τr )T ∈ ℜ2×1 is
the control torque vector , τl and τr are the control torques applied to the left and right wheels respectively.  is
the constraint force vector, and τd is the uncertain disturbance; M(q) ∈ ℜ3×3 is the system inertia matrix,
C(q, q̇) ∈ ℜ3×3 is the centripetal Coriolis matrix relating position and velocity, F(q̇) is the friction term, G(q) is
the gravity vector, B(q) ∈ ℜ3×2 is the input transformation matrix, AT (q) is the nonholonomic constraint matrix,
and S(q) ∈ ℜ3×2 is the Jacobi matrix that transforms the velocity of the WMR vehicle body coordinate system
to the velocity of the Cartesian coordinate system. The above matrices take the following form:
m 0 0 0 cos ϑ cos ϑ − sin ϑ cos ϑ 0
         
M(q) = 0 m 0 , C(q, q̇) = 0 , B(q) = r sin ϑ sin ϑ , A (q) = cos ϑ , S(q) = sin ϑ 0 . where
1 T
0 0 J 0 R −R 0 0 1
m and J denote the mass and rotational inertia of the WMR, respectively. Derivation of Eq. (3) yields:
q̈ = Ṡ(q)η + S(q)η̇ (4)
Bringing Eqs. (4) and (3) into the kinetic model (2), and at the same time for the elimination of the incomplete
constraint term AT (q) , a simultaneous left-multiplication of ST (q) on both sides of the equation yields:

Figure 1.  Schematic diagram of WMR.

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ST (q)M(q)Ṡ(q)η + ST (q)M(q)S(q)η̇ + ST (q)G(q) + ST (q)(τd + F(q̇)) = ST (q)B(q)τ − ST (q)AT (q) (5)

For the plane-moving WMR, its gravitational potential energy remains unchanged, resulting in G(q) = 0 .
Additionally, there are ST (q)M(q)Ṡ(q) = 0 and ST (q)AT (q) = 0 . This allows for a simplified dynamical model
of the system to be obtained:
M̄(q)η̇ + τ̄d = B̄(q)τ (6)
w h e r e M̄(q)= ST (q)M(q)S(q)
  , B̄(q) = ST (q)B(q) ,
a n d τ̄d = ST (q)(τd + F(q̇)) , s p e c i f i c a l l y,
m 0 1 1 1
M̄(q) = , B̄(q) = r Equation (6) can be written as:
0 J b −b
η̇ = M̄ −1 (q)B̄(q)τ − M̄ −1 (q)τ̄d (7)
T
where τ̄d = τ̄d1 τ̄d2 .


Dual closed‑loop control structure

To achieve coordinated trajectory tracking control of nonholonomic constrained WMR motion/force objective,
this paper proposes a dual closed-loop control structure as shown in Fig. 2. This structure is essentially a dual-
loop feedback control structure. The motion controller in the outer-loop generates the desired linear and angular
velocities using an MPC strategy. In the inner-loop, an integral sliding mode strategy is used to design the force
controller, while an ESO estimates the force from perturbations acting on the wheels and feeds forward the
disturbance estimates for compensation. To enhance the timeliness of MPC calculation, the Laguerre functions
are used to approximate the reconstruction of the MPC algorithm. This converts the optimised multiple control
inputs into the optimised few Laguerre coefficients while designing the optimisation problem solving condi-
tions. Additionally, the self-adaptive law is introduced to dynamically adjust the sliding mode switching gain.
This reduces system jitter and ensures that the mobile robot can track the desired trajectory stably and reliably.
It is noteworthy that the desired velocity vector generated by the outer-loop is exactly the trajectory required
by the inner-loop, and it is this desired velocity vector that establishes the link between the kinematics of the
system and the dynamical system.

Motion controller
MPC is a closed-loop optimal control strategy based on a model. It applies the idea of rolling computation in a
finite horizon and uses feedback and prediction corrections. The optimal computation of a certain system per-
formance indicator is used to determine the optimal control sequence in a control horizon. In order to ensure
that the system has better dynamic performance, which often requires a longer control horizon, this paper
applies the Laguerre functions, which are widely used in the field of system identification, to the design of model
predictive controllers, which are able to use fewer parameters instead of the length of the control horizon in the
original design, thus effectively reducing the amount of computation while ensuring the dynamic performance.

WMR tracking error model

The purpose of the motion controller design is to provide the WMR with the ability to generate the desired
velocities, assuming that a virtual WMR exists under the Cartesian coordinate system asshown in Fig. 3, given a
virtual global coordinate vector qr = (xr , yr , ϑr )T, such that vr and ωr are the virtual linear and angular velocities.
Then its corresponding virtual kinematic model is
q̇r = �(qr , ηr ) = S(qr )ηr (8)
where qr = (xr , yr , ϑr )T ∈ ℜ3×1, ηr = (vr , ωr )T ∈ ℜ2×1.

Figure 2.  Dual closed-loop control structure.

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Figure 3.  Schematic of WMR tracking error.

Assumption 1 The linear and angular velocities of the virtual WMR are not equal to zero simultaneously, i.e. the
virtual WMR being tracked is always in motion or in rotation.
Using Taylor’s formula, the kinematic model (3) is unfolded at the reference point (qr , ηr ) , ignoring the effect of
its higher order terms. The MWR error system can be obtained by differentiating Eq. (3) from Eq. (8):
˙ ⌢ ⌢ ⌢
(9)
q = A(t) q + B(t)η
xr − x
   
T vr − va
Where q = qr − q = ex , ey , eϑ = yr − y ∈ ℜ3×2 , ∈ ℜ2×1 ,
⌢  ⌢
η = ηr − η =
ωr − ωa
ϑ r − ϑ
0 0 −vr sin ϑr cos ϑr 0
   
A(t) = 0 0 vr cos ϑr ∈ ℜ , B(t) = sin ϑr 0 ∈ ℜ3×2.
3×3
0 0 0 0 1
Obviously, the error system (9) is controllable. In order to carry out the design of the MPC controller, the
error system (9) must be discretised for the sampling time h, and the discretised prediction model is obtained
as follows:
˙ ⌢ ⌢ ⌢
(10)
q(k + 1) = Akh q(k) + Bkh η(k)
1 0 −vr sin ϑr h cos ϑr h 0
   
where Akh = I + hA(t) = 0 1 vr sin ϑr h ∈ ℜ3×3,Bkh = hB(t) = sin ϑr h 0 ∈ ℜ3×2.
0 0 1 0 h
In this paper, we assume that the matrices Akh , Bkh are time-invariant
 ⌢ matrices,
 i.e., there are Akh = Ah ,
q(k)
Bkh = Bh at any moment. Define the augmented state matrix x(k) = ⌢ ∈ ℜ5×1, from (10), the aug-
η(k − 1)
mented state space model can be obtained:
 ⌢ ⌢
x(k + 1) = Ah x(k) + Bh �η(k)
⌢ (11)
y(k) = C h x(k)
   
⌢ Ah Bh ⌢ Bh ⌢
Where Ah = ∈ ℜ5×5, Bh = ∈ ℜ5×2, C h = I3×3 0 ∈ ℜ3×5, �η denotes the system con-
 
02×3 I2×2 I2×2
trol input increment, while
 T
�H(k) = �η(k) �η(k + 1) · · · �η(k + Nc − 1)

is defined as the sequence of future control input increments at time k , and Nc is the control horizon.

Laguerre functions
The discrete-time Laguerre network is shown in Fig. 4. The z-transform of the discrete-time Laguerre network
is as follows:
√ n−1
1 − α 2 z −1 − α

Ŵn (z) = (12)
1 − αz −1 1 − αz −1
where α is the pole of the discrete Laguerre network and 0 ≤ α ≤ 1; nis the rank of the discrete Laguerre network;
Ŵn (z) is the nth Laguerre network, the Laguerre function is defined as the inverse z-transform of the Laguerre
network, and the sequence of the Laguerre function can be expressed in vector form as

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Figure 4.  Laguerre network.

T
(13)

L(k) = l1 (k) l2 (k) · · · lN (k)

where N is the number of functions used by the Laguerre network and lj (k)(j = 1, 2, . . . , N) is the standard
orthogonal Laguerre function. The sequence of Laguerre functions satisfies the following difference equation
in state space form,
L(k + 1) = AIN L(k) (14)
where
 
α 0 ··· 0
 α0 α ··· 0 
AIN =  .. .. . . .. 
 
 . . . .
(−1)N−3 α N−3 α0 (−1)N−3 α N−3 α0 · · · α
√  T
α0 = (1 − α 2 ), L(0) = α0 1 −α · · · (−1)N−1 α N−1 .
In particular, the Laguerre function becomes a series of impulse functions whenα = 0.
T
(15)

L(k) = δ(k) δ(k − 1) · · · δ(k − N + 1)

Assuming that the impulse response of the discrete stabilised system at time k is P(k) , for a given parameter
N , it can be expressed as
P(k) = c1 l1 (k) + c2 l2 (k) + · · · + cN lN (k) (16)
where cj (j = 1, 2, . . . , N)is the Laguerre coefficient. A further significant property is the standard orthogonality
of the Laguerre function.
 ∞
�


 li (k)lj (k) = 0, i �= j
k=0
∞
� (17)
li (k)lj (k) = 1, i = j



k=0

Design of the LMPC controller

Performance indicator
Consider the increment of the control input after moment a as the impulse response of the stabilised system and
express it in the following form:

(18)
 
�η(k + i) = δ(i) δ(i − 1) · · · δ(i − Nc + 1) �H

where δ(i) denotes the impulse function, i.e., when i = 0 , δ(i) = 1 , otherwise δ(i) = 0 . According to (16) and
(18) can be approximated as
N

�η(k + i) = cj (i)lj (k) = LT (k)µ (19)
j=1
T
where µ = c1 c2 · · · cN is a parameter vector made up of N Laguerre coefficients. Therefore, the problem of

solving the optimal control increment �η(k + i) is transformed into a problem of solving the parameter vector
µ . This reduces the number of parameters to be optimised by the controller, i.e. the optimisation variables are
reduced from Nc to N dimensions. From Eqs. (11) and (19) the state and output variables of the system at time
after time are as follows:

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⌢m
x(k + m|k) = Ah x(k) + ς1T (m)µ (20)

⌢ ⌢m
y(k + m|k) = C h Ah x(k) + ς2T (m)µ (21)
⌢m ⌢  ⌢ m−(i+1) ⌢
m−1 m−1
 ⌢ ⌢ m−(i+1) ⌢
where Ah is the mth power of the matrix Ah . ς1T (m) = Ah Bh LT (i), ς2T (m) = C h Ah Bh LT (i)
i=0 i=0
. Thus, the performance indicator of the system is given by the following equation
Np

J= x T (k + m|k)Qx(k + m|k) + �HT R�H (22)
m=1

where Q , R are the weight matrices of the state and control inputs of the system, respectively, R is an Nc-dimen-
sional diagonal matrix with diagonal elements a , and a is the number of normals. If the predicted horizon Np
takes a sufficiently large value, it is obtained by substituting the H sequence and Eq. (19) into Eq. (22) based
on Eq. (17):
Np

J= x T (k + i|k)Qx(k + i|k) + µT RL µ (23)
i=1

Note that RL in Eq. (23) is a N-dimensional diagonal matrix with diagonal elements a , but with a different num-
ber of dimensions than R in Eq. (22). If Eq. (20) is substituted into Eq. (23), we obtain
Np m
 ⌢T ⌢m
J = µT �µ + 2µT ϒx(k) + x T (k)(Ah ) QAh x(k) (24)
m=1
Np Np ⌢m
where � = ς1 (m)Qς1T (m) + RL , ϒ = ς1 (m)QAh .
 
m=1 m=1
It can be seen that the third term in Eq. (24) is independent of µ . Therefore, minimising the performance indi-
cator J is essentially minimising the sum of the first two terms, and the performance indicator can be rewritten as

J̄ = µT �µ + 2µT ϒx(k) (25)

Constrained optimal solution

To avoid the problems of sudden torque change and unstable torque output of the driving motor caused by sud-
den velocity change during WMR motion, it is necessary to constrain the velocity and velocity increment during
the control process, i.e. the following input constraints are introduced.
�ηmin ≤ �η(k + m) ≤ �ηmax ,
ηmin ≤ η(k + m) ≤ ηmax , (26)
m = 0, 1, . . . , Nc − 1
where ηmin , ηmax are the minimum and maximum values of the control quantity and �ηmin , �ηmax are the
maximum and minimum values of the control increment.
Without loss of generality, it follows from Eq. (19) and η(k) = k−1
i=0 �η(i) that the constraints of Eq. (26)

can also be introduced into the Laguerre functions, written as
�ηmin ≤ M1 µ ≤ �ηmax
ηmin ≤ M2 µ + η(k − 1) ≤ ηmax (27)
 k−1 
� T
 L1 (i) 0T2 ··· 0Tm 
i=0
L1T (m) 0T2 T
 
··· 0m 
 k−1


0T1
� T
 0T1 T
L2 (m) ··· 0Tm   L2 (i) ··· 0Tm 
where M1 =  .. , M2 =  .
 
i=0
 
.. .. ..

 . . . .  .. .. .. .. 
.
 
. . .
0T1 0T2 T (m)  
··· Lm 
k−1

T 0T2 T (i)
 � 
01 ··· Lm
i=0
Up to this point, the quadratic programming problem for the error system (9) is solved by forming the MPC
at the discrete sampling time k :
µ∗ = arg min µT �µ + 2µT ϒx(k)
µ
M1 �Hmax
   
 −M1   −�Hmin  (28)
s.t. µ≤
M2  Hmax − Ht 
−M2 −Hmin + Ht

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where Hmax , Hmin , Hmax , Hmin are the set of maximum and minimum values of control increments
and the set of maximum and minimum values of control quantities, respectively in the control horizon; and
Ht = 1Nc ⊗ η(k − 1) , 1Nc are the column vectors with rows of Nc . ⊗ is the Kronecker product.
The above quadratic programming problem can be solved by existing well-established algorithms by choos-
ing  to be a positive definite symmetric matrix of N × N . The programming is a strictly convex quadratic
programming problem, and if at least one of the vectors µ satisfies the constraints and the feasible domain of
the performance indicator J̄ is lower bounded, then the quadratic programming problem has a globally unique
minimum value µ∗.
Following Eqs. (18) and (19), the sequence of optimal control increments can be obtained at the sample time.
T
�H∗ = �η∗ (k) �η∗ (k + 1) · · · �η∗ (k + Nc − 1) (29)


The conventional MPC applies the first value of Eq. (29) as the actual control increment to the system, perform-
ing the following feedback correction,
η(k) = η(k − 1) + �η∗ (k) (30)
Repeating the above process as the control horizon and prediction horizon roll forward clearly only reduces the
complexity of a single optimal solution. To further reduce the computational complexity of the MPC, assuming
the existence of an upper bound on the difference between the actual state value q(ℓ) and the optimal predic-
⌢

∗
tion q (ℓ) of the system after the ℓ-step control, we implement an optimisation solution condition to reduce the
⌢

number of optimisation s­ olutions34.

⌢∗
 
⌢
 q(k + ℓ) − q (k + ℓ|k) ≥ κe̟ h(κ−1) (31)


where κ ∈ ≥1 is an adjustable parameter, and ̟ = 2(vmax 2 ) . Notice that the optimal control incre-

2 + R2 ωmax
ment obtained at moment k is used in subsequent moments to provide feedback corrections to the system.
H∗ = η∗ (k), η∗ (k + 1), · · · , η∗ (k + ℓ) (32)
 

Since we are iterating over a nominal system in the optimisation problem, it is clear that for the system, η∗ (k) is
the optimal control input at moment k , but for k + 1 and moments thereafter, although η∗ (k + 1), · · · , η∗ (k + ℓ)
may not necessarily be the optimal solution, it must have the property of being suboptimal. Therefore, if Eq. (31)
is not satisfied, the control sequence obtained at the current moment is applied to the system through feedback
correction, and when the condition (31) is satisfied, an optimisation solution is performed to obtain a new control
sequence. After obtaining the optimal sequence of increments, a feedback correction is performed based on the
rule in Eq. (30) to obtain the desired velocity vector.

η∗ (k) = [vc (k), ωc (k)]T (33)

where the desired velocity vector η∗ (k) contains
both the desired linear velocity vc (k) and the desired angular
velocity ωc (k) . The optimisation process is then repeated in the next cycle to obtain the desired velocity of the
WMR online.
Note 1: The system automatically optimises the solution during the initial moments k and k + Nc , as there
is no control volume available in either case.

Stability assessment
The paper guarantees system stability through a reasonable terminal state, as stated in the following theorem.

Theorem 1 Develop a terminal state constraint x(k + Np ) = 0 into the rolling horizon optimisation problem, which
is generated by the control sequence�η(k + m)m = 0, 1, 2, . . . , Np . For each sampling moment k , there exists a
Laguerre coefficient µ that satisfies the inequality constraints and the terminal equation constraints, minimizing
the performance indicator J̄ .

Proof The Lyapunov function should be chosen as follows:

Np Np −1
 
V (x(k), k) = x0T (k + m|k)Qx0 (k + m|k) + �ηT0 (k + m)R�η0 (k + m) (34)
m=1 m=0
⌢m
where x0 (k + m|k) = Ah x0 (k) + ς1T (m)µ0 , µ0 is the optimal solution of the performance indicator J in
Eq. (23) at the moment of k when both the inequality constraints and the equation constraints are satisfied,
i.e.�η0 (k + m) = LT (m)µ0 . It is evident that the V(x(k), k) function is positive definite when x(k) → ∞ and
V (x(k), k) → ∞ , as shown in Eq. (34). The Lyapunov function at moment is
Np p −1
N
x1T (k + 1 + m|k + 1)Qx1 (k + 1 + m|k + 1) + �ηT1 (k + 1 + m)R�η1 (k + 1 + m)

V (x(k + 1), k + 1) =
m=1 m=0
(35)

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⌢m
where the state variables are x1 (k + 1 + m|k + 1) = Ah x1 (k) + ς1T (m)µ1, µ1 is the optimal solution of J
at the moment k + 1 satisfying all constraints, i.e. �η1 (k + 1 + m) = LT (m)µ1 . Assuming that all con-
straints are met at moment k , a feasible solution of µ1 for the initial state x(k + 1) in the rolling horizon
is µ0 . Therefore, the feasible control sequence corresponding to the feasible solution µ0 at moment k + 1 is
LT (1)µ0 , LT (2)µ0 , · · · , LT (Np − 1)µ0 , 0 . As µ1 is an optimal solution, there is:
V (x(k + 1), k + 1) ≤ V̄ (x(k + 1), k + 1) (36)
where V̄ (x(k + 1), k + 1) is obtained by replacing the control sequence of Eq. (35) with a feasible control sequence
LT (1)µ0 , LT (2)µ0 , · · · , LT (Np − 1)µ0 , 0 . Let
�V1 = V (x(k + 1), k + 1) − V (x(k), k)

�V2 = V̄ (x(k + 1), k + 1) − V (x(k), k)

Then there is:
V1 ≤ V2 (37)
and

�V2 =x T (k + Np |k)Qx(k + Np |k) − x T (k + 1)Qx(k + 1) − �ηT (k)Rη(k)

(38)
= − x T (k + 1)Qx(k + 1) − �ηT (k)R�η(k)
Equation (36) is carried over into Eq. (37):

�V1 ≤ −x T (k + 1)Qx(k + 1) − �ηT (k)R�η(k) < 0 (39)

The Lyapunov function value is decreasing, indicating that the control system is asymptotically stable. 

Force controller
In contrast to motion controller, force controller require online tracking of the desired velocity generated
by the outer-loop. When constructing the force controller, the desired velocity is fitted as a smooth curve
ηc = [vc , ωc ]T , where vc and ωc are the desired linear velocity and the desired angular velocity, respectively,
taking into account the optimal control increment at the current time and the control sequence at the previous
time. Let −M̄ −1 (q)τ̄d = (τdv , τdω )T denotes the external disturbances to which the WMR is subjected, while
τdv and τdω denote the disturbances acting on va and ωa , respectively. The dynamical model of the WMR can
be rewritten as follows:
1
v̇a = (τl + τr ) + τdv (40)
mr

R
ω̇a = (τl − τr ) + τdω (41)
Jr

Assumption 2 For the kinetic models (40) and (41) it is assumed that the external disturbances τdv and τdω are
bounded and continuous, and also that their first-order derivatives are bounded.
It can be seen that Eq. (40) has a similar form to Eq. (41), so the controller designed for it also has a similar
form, therefore the linear velocity dynamics (Eq. 40) is used as an example to design the inner-loop controller.

Design of ESO
In the kinetic model (40), let va = χ1 , mr
1
= b0, τdv = χ2, τ̄ = τl + τr , Eq. (40) can be rewritten as
χ̇1 = b0 τ̄ + χ2
(42)
χ̇2 = ε
By Assumption 2, the disturbance τdv is bounded and continuously integrable, so χ̇2 = ε exists and holds.
T
Let e1 = χ̂1 − χ1, e2 = χ̂2 − χ2, e0 = e1 e2 denotes the observation error, χ̂1 and χ̂2 are the observations

of χ1 and χ2 , respectively, then the ESO of system (42) can be designed as follows:

χ̂˙ 1 = χ̂˙ 2 − β1 e1 + b0 τ̄
(43)
χ̂˙ 2 = −β2 fal(e1 , σ1 , δ2 )
where β1 > 0, β2 > 0 are two adjustable  variables.
 Similarly, for systems 
(40) and (41), the adjustable variables
of the ESO are denoted by β13 = diag β1 β3 and β24 = diag β2 β4 , respectively, and bringing Eq. (42)
into Eq. (43), the observation error system is denoted by

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ė1 = e2 − β1 e1
(44)
ė2 = −β2 fal(e1 , σ1 , δ1 ) − ε
|e1 |σ1 sgn(e1 ), |e1 | > δ1

Note 2: fal(e1 , σ1 , δ1 ) = e1
, |e1 | ≤ δ1 is a non-linear function. The essence of Eq. (42) is a filtering
δ1 1−σ1
structure, e1 is a variable containing a time parameter, σ1 is a coefficient between 0 and 1 . δ1 ≥ 0 is a constant
that affects the filtering effect.
Note 3: For the angular velocity system (41), let ωa = χ3, τdω = χ4 ; e3 = χ̂3 − χ3, e4 = χ̂4 − χ4 denote the
observation errors, χ̂3 and χ̂4 are the observations of χ3 and χ4 , respectively.

Theorem 2 Let e21 = e1, e22 = e2 − β1 e1 for the observation error system (44), if β1 satisfies |e22 | > |εβ11| , then the
constructed ESO is valid, i.e. the observations χ̂1 and χ̂2 can converge to the actual states χ1 and χ2 respectively.

Proof If ε > 0 , by Theorem 2, the estimation error system (44) can be written as
ė21 = e22
(45)
ė22 = −β2 fal(e21 , σ1 , δ1 ) − β1 e22 − ε
Choose a Lyapunov function as follows
 e21
2
V3 = 2β2 fal(ς, σ1 , δ1 )dς + e22 (46)
0

Then, in the interval ς1 ∈ [0, e21 ] , Eq. (44) can be written as

2
V3 = 2β2 fal(ς1 , σ1 , δ1 )e21 + e22 (47)
Since β2 > 0 , and fal(·) is an odd function, then
2
V3 = 2β2 fal(ς, σ1 , δ1 )e21 + e22 >0 (48)
The derivation of Eq. (44) is as follows:
V̇3 = 2e22 β2 fal(e21 , σ1 , δ1 ) + 2e22 [−β2 fal(e21 , σ1 , δ1 ) − ε − β1 e22 ] = −2e22 (β1 e22 + ε) (49)
The conditioning gain β1 satisfies the inequality |e22 | > ε
β1 and it follows that V̇3 < 0 is constant. Similarly, if
inequality |e22 | > is met under condition ε < 0, V̇3 < 0 is constant.
− βε1
In summary, if the gain meets the inequality |e22 | > |ε|
β1 , then V̇3 is negative definite and e22 = 0 holds if and
only ife22 = 0 . This demonstrates the feasible validity of the error system.  

Design of the AISMC controller

The advantage of ISMC is that it ensures that the system state is on the sliding mode surface at the initial stage,
which reduces the convergence time of the system, and at the same time avoids the steady-state error that occurs
in conventional sliding mode control due to rebalancing by disturbance effects. Adaptive control is to make the
state of the system more in line with the environment by adjusting the parameters online, and constantly adjusting
the gain coefficients so that the system state far away has large gain coefficients and reduce the gain when close
to the sliding mode surface to reduce the back and forth vibration of the system near the sliding mode surface.
Therefore, this section designs the AISMC strategy to satisfy not only the achievability but also the smoothness.
Let e = vc − va denote the tracking error in vc and va . Deriving the error e yields.
ė = v̇c − b0 τ̄ − χ2 (50)
Design the integral sliding mode surface as follows:
 T
ℑ(t) = e + p fal(e(), σ2 , δ2 )d (51)
0

From Note 2, Eq. (51) is a segmented integral sliding mode surface, and p > 0 is the sliding mode surface split-
ting constant obtained by its derivation:

ℑ̇(t) = v̇c − b0 τ̄ − χ2 + pfal(e, σ2 , δ2 ) (52)

Assuming the existence of an upper bound γH on the sliding mode switching gain, adaptive gain coefficients
are designed to reduce jitter near the segmented sliding mode surface, so the gain coefficients are dynamically
adjustable.

γ̂˙ = ρℑsgn(ℑ) (53)

where γ̂ is the estimated value of γH and ρ > 0 is a constant. The estimation error of the gain switching coef-
ficient is

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γ̃ = γ̂ − γH (54)
Therefore, based on the ESO (43), the integral sliding mode surface (51) with the switching gain adaptive law
(Eq. 53), the following form of inner-loop torque control law is developed:
1
(55)

τ̄ = v̇c − χ̂2 + pfal(e, σ2 , δ2 ) + γ̂ sgn(ℑ)
b0

1 ·>0
Note 4. sgn(·)denotes a symbolic function specifically for sgn(·) =
−1 · < 0
Theorem 3 Taking into account the segmented integral sliding mode surface (51) and the inner loop torque control
rule (55), by selecting an appropriate positive parameter p , it is possible to cause the linear velocity tracking error e
to approach an appropriately small interval in a limited time, and simultaneously to cause the actual linear velocity
va to track up to the desired linear velocity vc under the action of the adaptive rule (Eq. 53).

Proof For the sectional integral sliding mode surface (Eq. 51), ṡ = 0 is satisfied under an equation
ė + pfal(e, σ2 , δ2 ) = 0 , i.e.
de ¯
= −p|e|sgn(e) (56)
dt
If the initial tracking error e(0) is not in the linear interval −δ2 , δ2 , integration of Eq. (56) leads to
 

 δ2  ¯

|e|− 1 
¯ ¯

t= − de = |e0 |1− − δ21− = T̄max
e0 psgn(e) p(1 − )¯

As a result, the error e will converge within the linear interval −δ2 , δ2 at the maximum time T̄max . Construct
 

the Lyapunov function as follows:

1 2 11 2
V4 = ℑ + γ̃ (57)
2 2ρ
The derivation yields
1 ˙
V̇4 = ℑℑ̇ + γ̃ γ̃
ρ
 1
= ℑ v̇c − b0 τ̄ − χ2 + pfal(e, σ2 , δ2 ) + γ̃ γ̃˙

ρ
 1
= ℑ χ̂2 − pfal(e, σ2 , δ2 ) − γ̂ sgn(ℑ) − χ2 + pfal(e, σ2 , δ2 ) + γ̃ γ̃˙

ρ
 1
= ℑ e2 − γ̂ sgn(ℑ) + γ̃ γ̃˙

ρ
 1
= ℑ e2 − (γ̃ + γH )sgn(ℑ) + γ̃ γ̃˙

ρ
 
  1˙
= ℑ e2 − γH sgn(ℑ) + γ̃ γ̃ − sgn(ℑ)ℑ
ρ
Since there is an upper bound γH on the switching gain of the sliding mode, we have, according to the adaptive
law (53)
1 ˙
γ̃ − sgn(ℑ)ℑ = 0 (58)
ρ
Thus, V̇4 can be written as:

(59)
 
V̇4 = ℑ e2 − γH sgn(ℑ)

According to Assumption 2, |e2 | is bound, that is, there exists a positive real number R such that |e2 | ≤ R , hence
V̇4 ≤ |e2 ||ℑ| − γH |ℑ|
(60)
≤ −(γH − R)|ℑ|
V̇4 ≤ 0 holds if the upper bound of the sliding mode switching gain γH ≥ R . That is, the adaptive law (Eq. 53)
with ESO (Eq. 43) ensures that Eq. (60) is semi-negative definite and therefore V4 (ℑ, γ̃ ) is a non-increasing
function with respect to time t , i.e. for any t ≥ 0, V4 (ℑ(t), γ̃ (t)) ≤ V4 (ℑ(0), γ̃ (0)) holds. Obviously, the integral
T
sliding mode surface ℑ → 0 , whenℑ = 0 , by Eq. (51), e = −p 0 fal(e(), σ2 , δ2 )d, e(∞) → 0 is established,
i.e.the actual linear velocity va tracks the desired linear velocity vc .  

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Experimental validation and discussion

Numerical simulation experiments
To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme, in this section we show the simulation results of
tracking the reference trajectory in the WMR inertial coordinate system. First, the structural parameters of the
WMR with the centre of mass coinciding with the geometric centre are given, m = 4kg , J = 2.5 kg · m2, r = 0.1
m, R = 0.4 m. Provided that the three-petalled rose with reference trajectories xr (t) = κ1 cos(3κ2 t) cos(κ2 t),
yr (t) = κ1 cos(3κ2 t) sin(κ2 t), where κ1 = 3 is the reference length of each petal and κ2 = π/45. Unlike simple
circular or linear reference trajectories, the tracking behaviour of a three-petalled rose trajectory is more com-
plex,  with a time-varying reference velocity. In this experiment, the linear reference velocity is represented by
vr = ẋr2 + ẏr2 ,wr = π/16 m/s. T  T
The WMR is assumed to have an initial position error q(0) = ex (0) ey (0) eϑ (0) = −0.5 0.5 0.1 ,
⌢ 
T  T
a state observer initial error e1 (0) e2 (0) e3 (0) e4 (0) = 0 0.5 0 0.5 , and it is also assumed that the

external disturbances to the WMR are trigonometric polynomials consisting of a sine-cosine function, i.e.
τ̄d1 = τ̄d2 = 8 sin(0.5t) + 10 cos(0.5t). To further verify the robustness of the controller to external disturbances,
a pulse disturbance of amplitude 10 is applied to the angular velocity system for 20s to simulate that the WMR
is subjected to a violent shock during trajectory tracking, but taking into account the requirements of assump-
tion 2; we approximate the pulse signal by a Gaussian function so that the disturbance has a continuous and
conducting character, in the following form:
 
∗ (t − mu )2
τ̄d2 = F ∗ exp −
2 ∗ mp 2

where mp = 0.1 is the standard deviation, mu = 30 is the mean and F = 10 is the magnitude.
In general, the LMPC controller needs to be given the sampling time h, the prediction horizon Np and the
control horizon Nc , where the parameters h = 0.2s , Np = 20, and Nc = 6 are set in the LMPC. The choice of
weight matrices Q and R can determine whether the system focuses more on position tracking or velocity
⌢T ⌢
tracking, set the elements a = 0.5 in R, and Q = C h C h, thus the matrices  and ϒ in the optimisation problem
can be obtained, and take κ = 2 in the optimisation solution condition according to Ref.34. In order to illus-
trate the ability of motion controllers to handle various constraints, the velocity and velocity increments of the
WMR will be appropriately limited in this paper, taking into account its real-world mechanical structure with
actual physical constraints. In the procedure it is assumed that the virtual WMR has |ω|max = 0.3, |v|max = 0.8,
T T
�ηmin = −0.2 −0.5 , �ηmax = 0.2 0.5 , which is introduced to the optimisation problem (28) through
 
Eq. (27). The second order nonlinear ESO with force controllers can be tuned parametrically by theorems 2 and
3: β1 = β2 = 30, β3 = β4 = 255, the sliding mode area division constants pv = 4, pω = 6, ρ = 0.01, δ2 = 0.01.
Figure 5 shows the actual tracking performance of WMR for a three-petalled rose curve under the control
strategy of this paper and the Ref.30 strategy. Comparison can be seen, even in the case of a large initial error, the
control strategy in this paper can make the WMR track on the reference trajectory within 8s, while the reference
control ­strategy30 needs 11s, it is obvious that the control strategy of this paper has a superior timeliness. At 20s,
the WMR will briefly deviate from the reference trajectory in the face of the suddenly applied intense impulse
disturbance, but it can be adjusted in time under the control strategy in this paper and can quickly follow the
reference trajectory, and its ability to overcome the external intense shock disturbance is better than that of the
Ref.30.
Due to the WMR underdrive behaviour, the tracking errors presented in Figs.6, 7 and 8 are not asymptotically
stabilised at zero, and there are some slight fluctuations, but from Fig. 5 these fluctuations are within an acceptable

Figure 5.  Tracking of reference trajectories under two control strategies,

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Figure 6.  Trajectory tacking error on X axis.

Figure 7.  Trajectory tacking error on Y axis.

Figure 8.  Trajectory tacking error on ϑ axis.

range. If a violent shock occurs at 20s, the tracking error will fluctuate slightly and then quickly converge to zero.
The novel dual closed-loop control strategy is designed to be responsive and more robust to external disturbances
and strong impulsive disturbances.
In Figs. 9 and 10, the purple solid line shows the velocity constraints of the motion controller and it can be
seen that the desired linear velocities generated by the outer-loop motion controller is limited within the con-
straints and no unpredictable velocity bursts occur. The maximum linear velocity of the WMR was limited to

Figure 9.  Desired vs. actual linear velocity and estimation of actual velocity.

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Figure 10.  Desired vs. actual angular velocity and estimation of actual velocity.

0.8m/s and maintained between 5s and 7s. The angular velocity system is subjected to a strong impulse distur-
bance with a fluctuation of ωc within a deviation value of 0.1, which is adjusted to the vicinity of the reference
angular velocity ωr within 3s. It is illustrated that the ESO developed in this paper is capable of better velocity
estimation and obtaining velocity signals online for timely feedback to ensure that the inner-loop force con-
troller can accurately track the generated desired velocity. Figs. 11 and 12 show the actual velocity observation
error, Fig. 13 illustrates that the output torque of the inner- loop controller outputs are in the range of 20 N · m .
Figures 14 and 15 illustrate estimation of the disturbance, where E = χ̂ − χ is defined as the absolute observer
error, i.e. the difference between the disturbance observer and the true value. Given the presence of an initial
error of 0.5 in the observer, it is clear that although the second-order nonlinear ESO designed in this paper has
a relatively large absolute error value in the first 8s, it basically remains in the range of less than 0.1 in the follow-
ing. In particular, there is a transient increase in the value of Edω when the angular velocity system is subjected
to impulsive disturbance, but the immunity of the force controller to estimation errors allows the overall con-
trol performance not to be significantly affected, Fig. 16 verifies that the disturbance are consistent with those
described in Assumption 2.
The Laguerre network is determined by the number of laguerre functions used N and the Laguerre pole α.
Here, a minimum cost function J̄min is defined, namely the optimal control inputs of Eq. (32) are brought to
the values obtained from Eq. (25). The effect of the Laguerre pole on the control performance of the LMPC is
analysed by simulation, with the linear velocity taken as an example. This is shown in Fig. 17. It can be observed
that the minimum cost function decreases with the increase of N. When the value of N is large, the optimal
adjustment of the Laguerre pole α will not affect the control performance of the LMPC. Conversely, in the case

Figure 11.  Actual linear velocity observation error.

Figure 12.  Actual angular velocity observation error.

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Figure 13.  Control torque.

Figure 14.  Linear velocity system disturbance and estimation.

Figure 15.  Angular velocity system disturbance and estimation.

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Figure 16.  Derivative of angular velocity system disturbance.

Figure 17.  The number of Laguerre functions and the minimum cost function corresponding to the Laguerre
pole.

of a small value of N, an inappropriate selection of the Laguerre pole α will result in a decrease in the control
performance of the LMPC. Consequently, in this experiment, an N value of 8–10 and a α value of 0.75–0.95 can
be identified as optimal parameters for achieving a satisfactory control effect.
In order to ascertain the impact of the introduction of the optimisation solution condition (31) on the MPC
computation, κ = 0 is designated as the regular cycle-sampling MPC, and κ = 2 denotes the LMPC strategy with
the introduction of the optimisation solution condition. The results are presented in Fig. 18, which illustrates that
the incorporation of the optimisation solution condition renders the optimisation problem acyclical in compari-
son to the conventional cycle-sampling MPC approach. The solver is activated 98 times, whereas the conventional
MPC solution necessitates 300 instances, thereby signifying a substantial reduction in computational burden.

Figure 18.  Optimisation problem solving moments.

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In MATLAB/Simulink co-simulation, the “set_param(’filename’,’Profile’,’on’)” command is employed to obtain

a report of the execution time of the program when tracking the trilobal rose curve in Fig. 5. Setting the simu-
lation time to 60s, the actual running time of the system for MPC, LMPC and LMPC with optimised solution
condition (31) is shown in Fig. 19. The results demonstrate that the LMPC reduces the system running time by
43.6% in comparison to the conventional MPC, while the introduction of the optimal solution condition reduces
the system running time by 61.5%. Consequently, the proposed control strategy exhibits a significant advantage
in terms of timeliness.

Practical experimental verification

To further validate the effectiveness and practicality of the dual closed-loop control structure proposed in this
paper, it is necessary to verify the algorithm on a real physical system. The WMR prototype system equipped
with LiDAR and inertial measurement unit (IMU) used for the experiments is shown in Fig. 20. The motor
microcontroller STM32F429VET6 (180 MHz) is utilised to generate pulse width modulated (PWM) signals with
varying duty cycles, thereby regulating the speed of the two drive wheels, which are driven by two DC motors.
LIDAR and IMU are employed to acquire the position and orientation information of the WMR, and the WMR
transmits the aforementioned information between the WMR and the ground workstation via a WiFi network.
The practical control system structure is shown in Fig. 21. Considering the problem of LMPC computation,
in the proposed control algorithm, the outer-loop controller optimisation problem is run on a ground worksta-
tion (configured with a dual-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, 16GB RAM, 64-bit Windows 11 system), and the
ESO is executed on the local device of the WMR with the inner-loop controller. The WMR status information
is sent via Wifi to the PC ground station, which solves the optimisation problem to obtain the optimal control
sequence and sends the desired speed signal to the WMR.
The tracking task and controller parameter selection are identical to those employed in the simulation. The
experiments are conducted on an unsmooth concrete pavement, with and without ESO, with the objective of
validating the efficacy of ESO. The WMR position sampling trajectories are illustrated in Figs. 22 and 23. It can
be observed that the sum trajectory tracking with ESO is superior to that without ESO, but Fig. 22 shows that the

Figure 19.  Comparison of the actual running time of the simulation under the three strategies.

Figure 20.  WMR system in practical experiments.

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Figure 21.  Practical control system framework.

tracking error cannot be converged strictly to zero, the reason is that this WMR, as a special class of networked
control system, is faced with packet loss, latency and other typical problems that cannot be avoided.

Conclusion
In this paper, the problem of nonholonomic constrained WMR trajectory tracking control in the presence of
external disturbances is investigated and a dual closed-loop control structure is presented. The development of
an advanced MPC motion controller based on the Laguerre functions for generating desired velocities in the
outer-loop achieves higher tracking accuracy of the robot’s pose, and the construction of optimised solution
conditions to improve the computational timeliness of the conventional MPC in two dimensions. In the inner-
loop, the AISMC scheme with ESO is considered to track the desired velocity while estimating and compensat-
ing for the external disturbances in the inner-loop and outputting the control torques that actually operate on
the WMR system. The proposed dual control structure can implement coordinated trajectory tracking control
of motion/force. We consider introducing more complex nonlinear constraints in MPC and applying them to
WMR trajectory tracking control under the dynamics model in the further work.

Figure 22.  Actual tracking trajectory with ESO.

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Figure 23.  Actual tracking trajectory without ESO.

Data availability
Simulation programmes are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Received: 1 March 2024; Accepted: 26 July 2024

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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers
62363022, 61663021, 71763025, and 61861025]; Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province [grant num-
ber 23JRRA886]; Gansu Provincial Department of Education: Industrial Support Plan Project [grant number
2023CYZC-35].

Author contributions
Conceptualization, Funding acquisition and Project administration: Minan Tang; Data curation and Software:
Kunxi Tang; Formal analysis: Kunxi Tang, Jiandong Qiu, Xiaowei Chen; Investigation and Validation: Kunxi Tang,
Yaqi Zhang, Jiandong Qiu, Xiaowei Chen; Methodology: Minan Tang, Kunxi Tang, Yaqi Zhang; Writing-original
draft: Minan Tang, Kunxi, Tang; Writing-review & editing: Minan Tang, Jiandong Qiu.

Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.T.
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