An efficient trajectory tracking control for tractor-trailer vehicle system

This article mainly presents a control method for an underactuated tractor-trailer vehicle, subject to the nonholonomic constraint, uncertain disturbance and various physical limits, which is aimed at receiving a good tracking performance. All in all, linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and model predictive control (MPC) are used to design the posture controller to make the midpoint of two parallel plating wheels for the underactuated trailer follow an arbitrary reference trajectory given by earth-fixed frame, and sliding mode control (SMC) is introduced to design the dynamic controller for the tracking of the desired velocities produced by the posture controller. The simulation results validate the control strategy consisting of the MPC-based kinematic controller and the SMC-based dynamic controller is rather effective and efficient for the underactuated tractor-trailer vehicle, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed controllers.