Active disturbance rejection control for unmanned tracked vehicles in leader-follower scenarios: discrete-time implementation and field test validation

This paper presents a systematic design of an active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) system for unmanned tracked vehicles (UTVs) in leader-follow formation. Two ADRC controllers are designed for the lateral and the longitudinal channels of the UTV based on control errors in the cross-track and the along-track directions. Through simulations, the proposed ADRC approach is first shown to outperform the conventional PI/PID controllers in scenarios involving sudden changes in the leader motion dynamics, slippage disturbances, and measurement noise. Then, a comprehensive experimental validation of the proposed leader-follower control is performed using a laboratory UTV equipped with a camera and laser sensors (to enable the calculation of error signals). In order to provide more effective interaction between the human (leader) and the UTV (follower) during the leader-follower task, a camera-based subsystem for human pose recognition is developed and deployed. Finally, the experimental results obtained outdoors demonstrate that the proposed ADRC-based leader-follower UTV control system achieves high tracking capabilities, robustness against slippage disturbances, and adaptability to changing environmental conditions.