Velocity Controller for a Class of Vehicles

This paper addresses the problem of velocity tracking control for various fully-actuated robotic vehicles. The presented method, which is based on transformation of equations of motion allows one to use, in the control gain matrix, the dynamical couplings existing in the system. Consequently, the dynamics of the vehicle is incorporated into the control process what leads to fast velocity error convergence. The stability of the system under the controller is derived based on Lyapunov argument. Moreover, the robustness of the proposed controller is shown too. The general approach is valid for 6 DOF models as well as other reduced models of vehicles. Simulation results on a 6 DOF indoor airship validate the described velocity tracking methodology.