Composite nonlinear extended state observer and its application to unmanned ground vehicles

In this paper, a disturbance-observer-based control strategy is proposed for longitudinal control and lateral control of unmanned ground vehicles. A composite nonlinear extended state observer is put forward to estimate the total disturbance. A longitudinal dead-zone model is developed with actual constraints and rapidity requirements for unmanned ground vehicles. The disturbance-observer-based feedback controller is presented to improve the robustness of the closed-loop system by incorporating the composite nonlinear extended state observer. Numerical and experimental results are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.