Nonlinear Robust Techniques Applied to Control the Stability of an Electric Tricycle

This paper presents an original application of Sliding Mode (SM) control to stabilize an electric tricycle prototype using an on-board servomotor. SM controllers are known for their robustness against noise, disturbances, and model uncertainties. First, we design an inverted pendulum and cart controller to develop the methodology to be applied to the vehicle. A simplified mathematical model is adopted to design an SM controller for the inverted pendulum and cart and subsequently tested in the experimental setup. The approach is then extended to design an SM controller based on a simplified mathematical model for the tricycle prototype, for which an experimental parameter identification was conducted. This controller is then tested on a complex multibody structure representing the tricycle. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is shown through successful experimental validation for the pendulum control, together with simulated control of the multibody tricycle model. These results highlight the achieved performance and robustness of both controllers. The next future step is to apply the methodology to the prototype vehicle moving on a real street.