Search Results (152)

Cooperative interception by multiple aircraft requires coordination of physical event times and terminal line-of-sight (LOS) directions under strongly coupled three-dimensional motion. A limitation of predictor-based designs is that agreement of estimated terminal times is often interpreted as simultaneous interception without an explicit predictor-to-event error bound. This paper develops a distributed mixed-power fixed-time guidance framework that comprises point-mass kinematics and ideal inner-loop tracking. An exact spherical-coordinate model retains the azimuth–elevation coupling terms. The radial predicted terminal time (RPTT) is used as the distributed coordination state, and a local bound links RPTT to independently detected interception events. A mixed-power consensus protocol is analyzed for a fixed graph and a finite set of connected undirected switching graphs using a common Lyapunov function. An inertial-frame fixed-time observer estimates the unmeasured target acceleration, while a C²-regularized nonsingular fast terminal sliding-mode law regulates the terminal LOS azimuth and elevation. The analysis distinguishes nominal exact fixed-time consensus, perturbed practical fixed-time reachability, and exponential convergence inside the regularization layer. Four-aircraft simulations produced a 0.435 ms independent event-time spread and terminal LOS errors below 0.046°. Relative to a peak-matched single-power protocol, the RPTT agreement time was reduced by 34.3%, with a 0.58% increase in total control effort. The results support the method’s use as a guidance-layer coordination design within the stated sensing, communication, and inner-loop assumptions. Full article

In this paper, an ultra-local model-based finite-time sliding mode control (ULM-FTSMC) method is developed for tracking quadrotor position and attitude in the presence of uncertainties and external disturbances. Based on an ultra-local model technique, the proposed ULM-FTSMC scheme consists of an adaptive neural network observer (ANNO) and a non-singular fast terminal sliding mode controller (NFTSMC). The ultra-local model is employed to approximate complex quadrotor dynamics, thereby reducing the complexity of controller design. The ANNO is designed to estimate the state variables required for subsequent control design and compensate for the lumped disturbances. Furthermore, an improved reaching law incorporating a variable exponent and multiple power terms is developed for the nonsingular fast terminal sliding surface, based on which an NFTSMC is constructed to achieve accurate trajectory tracking within finite time. The stability of the closed-loop system and the finite-time convergence of the tracking errors are rigorously established using Lyapunov theory. Finally, comparative numerical simulations with several existing controllers are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. Full article

This paper presents an adaptive event-triggered nonsingular fast terminal sliding-mode control (AETSMC) framework for quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles subject to aerodynamic disturbances, actuator loss of effectiveness (LOE) of up to 60%, and intermittent denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. First, a nonsingular fast terminal sliding-mode (NFTSM) surface is constructed using fractional powers of the tracking error rather than fractional-order derivatives. This design ensures finite-time convergence while avoiding the singularity associated with conventional terminal sliding-mode schemes. Second, a smooth positive-semidefinite barrier function (Smooth-PSBF) is incorporated into the adaptive gain law. The resulting law provides only the compensation required to maintain the prescribed bound, thereby limiting gain overestimation and chattering. Third, a dual-mode event-triggering mechanism combines an exponentially decaying threshold with a zero-order hold. A positive lower bound on the inter-event interval is derived from the closed-loop dynamics, which excludes Zeno behaviour. Simulations under matched conditions show that the proposed method reduces the pitch-channel root-mean-square error by 79.4% and the integral squared error by 95.8% relative to the first reproduced baseline. In a separate 15-s communication experiment sampled at 1 kHz, the controller generated 128 transmissions instead of 15,000 periodic updates, corresponding to a 99.15% reduction. These results indicate that the proposed framework can improve fault-tolerant tracking while reducing communication demand under intermittent DoS attacks. Full article

This paper investigates the trajectory tracking control problem for an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) subject to unknown time-varying environmental disturbances and the challenge of ensuring fast convergence while avoiding singularities. A novel fixed-time nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (NFTSM) control scheme, integrated with a fixed-time disturbance observer (DOB), is proposed to achieve high-precision and robust tracking. The control architecture consists of three key components: (i) a fixed-time virtual velocity control law designed to ensure that position errors converge to zero within a fixed time even when velocity errors vanish, thereby preventing slow convergence; (ii) a nonsingular fast terminal sliding surface that eliminates the singularity issue inherent in traditional terminal sliding mode and guarantees that the USV state converges to the desired trajectory within a fixed time independent of initial conditions; and (iii) a fixed-time DOB that accurately estimates and compensates for external disturbances, with estimation errors proven to converge to zero in a fixed time. The stability and fixed-time convergence of the closed-loop system are rigorously established using Lyapunov theory. Comparative simulations, conducted under external disturbances on the Cybership II model, demonstrate that the proposed NFTSMC strategy significantly outperforms conventional sliding mode control (SMC) and nonsingular terminal sliding mode control (NTSMC). Specifically, the proposed scheme reduces the integral of absolute error (IAE) for position tracking by over 60% and the integral of time-weighted absolute error (ITAE) by more than 30% compared to SMC, while achieving smoother control inputs and stronger disturbance rejection. These results highlight the superior convergence speed, tracking accuracy, and robustness of the proposed controller, underscoring its originality and practical value for USV autonomous navigation. Full article

In response to the severe chattering, slow dynamic response, and limited disturbance rejection capability of switched reluctance motor (SRM) drive systems under conventional control methods, this paper develops an improved nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller (INFTSMC). An integral sliding surface is first designed to eliminate the steady-state tracking error. An adaptive exponent and an improved double-power reaching law are then introduced to enhance the convergence performance. In addition, a smooth hyperbolic tangent approximation and a boundary layer design are employed instead of the conventional signum function to suppress chattering while maintaining a rapid response. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that the sliding variable is globally asymptotically stable and enters any prescribed neighborhood of the origin within a fixed time independent of the initial condition, thereby establishing practical fixed-time convergence rather than exact finite-time stability. Furthermore, an error-dependent bandwidth scheduling mechanism is incorporated into the modified super-twisting observer, resulting in an adaptive bandwidth modified super-twisting observer (AB-MSTO) for load torque estimation and compensation. The proposed bandwidth scheduling mechanism improves the balance between transient estimation speed and steady-state noise sensitivity. Finally, a MATLAB/Simulink simulation platform is constructed to evaluate the proposed control strategy. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed INFTSMC combined with the AB-MSTO improves the dynamic speed regulation performance and disturbance rejection capability of the SRM drive system under different operating conditions. Full article

To address the issues of sluggish dynamic response, significant steady-state fluctuations, and poor disturbance rejection associated with traditional proportional–integral (PI) and conventional speed control methods, a novel sensorless sliding-mode speed control strategy for permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) based on the super-twisting algorithm (STA) is proposed. First, an advanced sliding-mode speed controller is designed by integrating an integral nonsingular fast terminal sliding-mode surface with the STA, thereby enhancing the dynamic response and transient stability of the PMSM under speed variations. Subsequently, to mitigate inherent sliding-mode chattering, a novel load torque observer is developed. This observer continuously feeds forward real-time load estimates to the speed controller, which substantially improves the system’s robustness against external disturbances. Furthermore, to eliminate the reliance on mechanical sensors and ensure reliable operation across diverse scenarios, an improved sliding-mode observer (SMO) incorporating the STA is utilized to achieve more precise rotor position and speed estimation. Finally, an experimental platform is established to conduct comprehensive variable-speed and variable-load tests on the PMSM. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method improves the dynamic response and disturbance immunity of the PMSM by 58.33% and 71.75%, respectively, while reducing steady-state fluctuations by 33.33%. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed sensorless sliding-mode control strategy and show improved speed regulation performance for PMSM drives. Full article

Traditional permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) control systems rely on mechanical position sensors for high-precision rotor position and speed information, which increases hardware complexity, raises system cost, reduces reliability, and limits adaptability to harsh environments. To overcome the above limitations, this paper proposes a novel high-performance sensorless speed control strategy for PMSMs, which is constructed based on a non-singular terminal sliding mode observer (NTSMO) and a non-singular terminal sliding mode controller (NTSMC). First, an improved fast power reaching law (IFPRL) is proposed, which consists of a variable exponential reaching term and a power reaching term. Specifically, the gain of the exponential reaching term is dynamically adjusted by the absolute value of the sliding mode switching function, enabling the reaching law to operate in two different modes throughout the entire convergence process of the system state. Moreover, the introduction of scaling coefficient c compensates for the performance degradation caused by variations in the range of sliding mode surfaces (SMSs) in different systems. The proposed IFPRL not only effectively mitigates the inherent chattering issue, it also expedites the rate at which the system state converges to its SMS. On this basis, both the NTSMO for rotor position observation and the NTSMC for speed closed-loop control are designed by embedding the proposed IFPRL into the framework of non-singular terminal sliding mode control theory. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through numerical simulations and experimental tests. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed IFPRL-based NTSMC + NTSMO scheme reduces the root mean square error (RMSE) of speed control by 2.7% relative to the traditional SMC + SMO method. The proposed method realizes reliable sensorless speed control for PMSMs and exhibits superior dynamic response, higher control accuracy, and stronger robustness against disturbances. Full article

Deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) cooperatively with legged robots for disaster response and inspection requires autonomous docking on miniature walking platforms. This study addresses the problem of landing a foldable quadrotor onto the back of a trotting wheel-legged robot ($300\times 180$ mm) and subsequently taking off while carrying it as a payload. Four tightly coupled challenges distinguish this task from conventional mobile-platform landing: (i) an extremely small landing surface, (ii) gait-induced periodic vibrations at $2.5$ Hz, (iii) continuous platform translation at $0.3$–$0.8$ m/s, and (iv) surface docking that requires simultaneous position and attitude matching rather than mere point tracking. The proposed framework comprises four components: (1) a novel single-servo crank-rocker folding mechanism that reduces the folded body footprint by 48.5% and the maximum linear dimension from 590 mm to 309 mm (↓47.6%) compared with the prior dual-servo design; (2) a staged Continuous Fast Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode (CFNTSM) controller combined with a Gait-Frequency-Aware Finite-time Extended Observer (GFA-FEO); (3) a Feature-wise Linear Modulation Soft Actor-Critic (FiLM-SAC) residual reinforcement-learning policy conditioned on physical states and mission phase, with an adaptive trust weight $\lambda \left(t\right)$; and (4) a payload-adaptive takeoff strategy with parameter hot-switching to handle the twofold mass increase. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations and ablation studies across three experiment groups demonstrate that the proposed hierarchical framework achieves sub-centimetre (<10 mm) position accuracy and <3° attitude matching on a walking platform. Quantitatively, the full method reduces docking RMSE by 42% relative to the model-based CFNTSM + GFA-FEO controller without residual RL (4.2 vs. 7.2 mm) and reduces post-lock takeoff RMSE by 63% through FEO hot-switching (16.2 vs. 44.2 mm). Full article

Aiming to improve the robustness of two-phase buck converters powering DC bus of permanent magnet synchronous motor drives, this article presents a novel voltage regulation scheme. The proposed scheme comprises a three-switching-surface nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller (TSS-NFTSMC) for output voltage regulation and a current balancing controller to equalize the inductor currents. Due to the fast terminal sliding mode surface, the output voltage error converges more rapidly both when far from zero and when approaching zero. The phase plane is split into four regions by three independent switching surfaces. Based on the region where the sliding variable resides, the TSS-NFTSMC can directly decide the number of enabled high-side switches, which helps suppress internal disturbances effectively. The stability and convergence of the presented control system are verified via Lyapunov stability analysis. The convergence property of TSS-NFTSMC is independent of the current controller. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed control strategy achieves satisfactory dynamic response and strong disturbance rejection capability. Full article

Cable-driven manipulators have emerged as a compelling alternative to traditional manipulators (driven by either electrical, hydraulic, or pneumatic motors), especially for operations in constrained and complex environments. Despite offering many advantages, they still pose significant control challenges. Therefore, this paper presents a novel position tracking control framework for an n-DOF cable-driven manipulator subject to lumped mismatched uncertainties arising from unknown dynamic errors and external disturbances. The proposed approach is built upon non-singular fast terminal sliding mode control (NFTSMC), which provides robustness, high-precision tracking, fast finite-time convergence, chattering-free torque input, and complete elimination of singularity issues. To further enhance control performance, an extended state observer (ESO) is incorporated to accurately estimate unmeasured states and suppress lumped uncertainties. The stability of the closed-loop system under the proposed method is rigorously proven by the Lyapunov theorem. Finally, the superiority of the proposed method over existing controllers is demonstrated by comparative simulations to highlight its potential for practical implementation in complex robotic environments. Full article

This paper proposes a finite-time target tracking control for multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on a vision-inertial-stabilized platform. To address the challenge of stable and accurate moving target tracking, the sliding mode control (SMC) technique is used to overcome limitations of conventional control algorithms, such as poor robustness and slow convergence speed. First, by computing the pixel deviation between the target and the image center, a kinematic model of the tracking target is established. Then, by introducing homogeneous system theory into the sliding mode surface design, a non-singular fast integral terminal sliding mode control (NFITSMC) is designed for target tracking via regulating the rotational angular acceleration of dual actuators in the vision inertial stabilized platform, thereby driving the pixel deviation to converge to zero in a finite time. Strict theoretical analysis is given to prove the finite-time stability and robustness of the closed-loop control system. Furthermore, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method maintains higher tracking accuracy than SMC, ISMC, and TSMC. Full article

This paper proposes a novel adaptive sliding mode control strategy for bionic aerial manipulators performing canopy-sampling tasks. Specifically, an adaptive neural barrier function-based fast terminal sliding mode control (BFASMC-NN) scheme is developed to address the joint-space trajectory tracking problem by integrating fast continuous nonsingular terminal sliding mode control (FNTSMC), neural networks (NNs), and barrier functions (BFs). The aerial manipulator is modeled as a rootless system, and its kinematic and dynamic characteristics are analyzed separately. Radial basis function neural networks (RBF-NNs) are introduced to approximate lumped disturbances, while BFs are incorporated to mitigate the effects of joint input saturation. Meanwhile, FNTSMC is employed to guarantee finite-time convergence of the system states. The stability of the closed-loop system is rigorously proven based on Lyapunov stability theory. Two simulation studies are conducted to validate the proposed method, and the results demonstrate that it achieves stronger disturbance rejection capability, faster convergence, and higher tracking accuracy than existing approaches. Full article

Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are widely used in agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) electromechanical systems for their high efficiency and power density. While sliding mode control (SMC) offers robustness for PMSM drives, conventional designs face challenges like slow convergence, singularity, and chattering. This paper proposes a model-free improved non-singular fast terminal SMC scheme with an improved adaptive super-twisting algorithm and a disturbance observer (MFINFTSMC-IADSTA-IFTSMO) for agricultural UAV applications. The designed sliding surface ensures fixed-time convergence without singularity, the adaptive reaching law reduces chattering, and the observer enables feedforward compensation of disturbances. Closed-loop stability is proven via Lyapunov theory. DSP-based experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms existing SMC variants in dynamic response, steady-state accuracy, chattering suppression, and disturbance rejection. Specifically, the proposed method achieves a start-up convergence time of only 0.35 s, which is 56.25% shorter than that of the classic SMC-STA method, fully verifying its superior fast convergence performance. Full article

Multi-omnidirectional mobile robot formations offer significant advantages for applications in unstructured environments. However, under constraints such as limited field of view and high operator cognitive load, existing teleoperation frameworks struggle to guarantee formation safety and stability. In this study, a bilateral shared control framework for multi-robot formation that integrates intent perception and vortex-field modulation is proposed. First, an Intent-Mediated Asymmetric Vortex Modulation (IM-AVM) strategy is developed, where the operator’s micro-intentions are mapped to determine the topological orientation of a vortex field. By constructing a dynamic asymmetric modulation matrix, saddle points in the potential field are geometrically eliminated, enabling deadlock-free obstacle avoidance while maintaining a rigid formation. Second, a multi-dimensional perception-based dynamic authority arbitration and topological deadlock escape mechanism is constructed, facilitating a seamless transition from assisted deadlock to autonomous escape. Finally, a formation coordination system based on anisotropic flow field modulation and adaptive sliding mode control is designed. Rigid formation constraints are transformed into a tangential safe flow field, and robust tracking is subsequently achieved through an Adaptive Nonsingular Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Controller (ANFTSMC). Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves collision-free navigation for the formation in simulated environments. Full article

This paper proposes an adaptive wavelet neural network nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control strategy based on a finite-time framework for a space robot system under external disturbances and model uncertainties. Firstly, the dynamic model of space robot is established based on the second Lagrange equation. Unlike sliding mode control, which converges asymptotically, terminal sliding mode control (TSMC) has been proposed to ensure finite-time convergence for a space robot system. Based on the aforementioned TSMC framework, the fast terminal sliding mode control (FTSMC) is proposed to enhance system convergence rate. However, TSMC exhibits a singularity issue attributed to the presence of negative fractional order. To avoid this issue, a nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller (NFTSMC) has been proposed. The controller is designed to integrate linear and nonlinear terms into a novel nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode surface. The method achieves fast finite-time convergence concurrently with improved robustness, while effectively avoiding singularities. To compensate for external disturbances and model uncertainties in the space robot system, this paper proposes the combination of wavelet neural network (WNN) for the real-time estimation of lumped uncertainties. Network parameters are dynamically adjusted via an adaptive law to mitigate chattering effectively and enhance trajectory tracking precision. Utilizing Lyapunov stability theory and numerical simulations, the space robot system’s stability is rigorously proven and the controller effectiveness is validated. Compared with the traditional NFTSMC, the proposed control strategy reduces the convergence time by 20.74%. In the case of trajectory tracking comparison, the root mean square error (RMSE) improves by 35.85%, the mean tracking error improves by 63.29%, the integral of absolute error (IAE) improves by 29.37%, and the integral of time-weighted absolute error (ITAE) improves by 93.06%. Additionally, a comparative simulation with RBFNN is included in this paper. Compared with RBFNN, the proposed control strategy reduces input torque energy consumption by 77.36% and improves control smoothness by 87.03%, quantitatively demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy. Full article