Nonsingular recursive-structure sliding mode control for high-order nonlinear systems and an application in a wheeled mobile robot

This work investigates the problem of fast tracking control for a class of high-order nonlinear systems subject to the matched disturbances. More particularly, a novel practical fixed-time disturbance observer is first presented by using a smooth hyperbolic tangent function. Then, a new nonsingular recursive-structure sliding mode surface is proposed based on the terminal sliding mode surface. With the reconstructed information deriving from the designed disturbance observer, a nonsingular recursive-structure sliding mode based finite-time tracking control approach incorporating with a new adaptive law is proposed to ensure the tracking errors converge to a small region of the origin in finite time. The finite-time stability of the closed-loop tracking control system driven by the proposed control scheme is analyzed and proved utilizing Lyapunov theory. And also, the proposed generalized control approach is applied to a mobile robotic experimental platform to achieve accurate trajectory tracking on the uneven ground. Finally, the numerical simulation and comparative experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach.