In this paper a smooth starter, based on a dc/dc Buck power converter, for the angular velocity trajectory tracking task of a dc permanent magnet motor is presented. To this end, a hierarchical controller is designed, which is integrated by a control associated with the dc motor based on differential flatness at the high level, and a control related with the dc/dc Buck converter based on a cascade control scheme at the low level. The control at the high level allows the dc motor angular velocity to track a desired trajectory and also provides the desired voltage profile that must be tracked by the output voltage of the dc/dc Buck power converter. In order to assure the latter, a cascade control at the low level is designed, considering a sliding mode control for the inner current loop and a proportional-integral control for the outer voltage loop. The hierarchical controller is tested through experiments using MATLAB-Simulink and the DS1104 board from dSPACE. The obtained results show that the desired angular velocity trajectory is well tracked under abrupt variations in the system parameters and that the controller is robust in such operation conditions, confirming the validity of the proposed controller.

A sensorless control based on the exact tracking error dynamics passive output feedback (ETEDPOF) methodology is proposed for executing the angular velocity trajectory tracking task on the “full-bridge Buck inverter–DC motor” system. When such a methodology is applied to the system, the tracking task is achieved by considering only the current sensing and by using some reference trajectories for the system. The reference trajectories are obtained by exploiting the flatness property associated with the mathematical model of the “full-bridge Buck inverter–DC motor” system. Experimental tests are developed for different desired angular velocity trajectories. With the aim of obtaining the experimental results in closed-loop, a “full-bridge Buck inverter–DC motor” prototype, Matlab-Simulink, and a DS1104 board from dSPACE are employed. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed control.

By using the hierarchical controller approach, a new solution for the control problem related to trajectory tracking in a differential drive wheeled mobile robot (DDWMR) is presented in this paper. For this aim, the dynamics of the three subsystems composing a DDWMR, i.e., the mechanical structure (differential drive type), the actuators (DC motors), and the power stage (DC/DC Buck power converters), are taken into account. The proposed hierarchical switched controller has three levels: the high level corresponds to a kinematic control for the mechanical structure; the medium level includes two controls based on differential flatness for the actuators; and the low level is linked to two cascade switched controls based on sliding modes and PI control for the power stage. The hierarchical switched controller was experimentally implemented on a DDWMR prototype via MATLAB-Simulink along with a DS1104 board. With the intention of assessing the performance of the switched controller, experimental results associated with a hierarchical average controller recently reported in literature are also presented here. The experimental results show the robustness of both controllers when parametric uncertainties are applied. However, the performance achieved with the switched controller introduced in the present paper is better than, or at least similar to, performance achieved with the average controller reported in literature.

Robotics is a fast developing and exciting field with multiple applications which span from robot manipulators to mobile robots. This paper presents a literature review on wheeled mobile robots. We point out the main considerations to be taken into account when designing this class of robots. The main control problems are recalled as well as the corresponding solutions. Finally, we summarize the most important approaches used to render mobile robots autonomous.

This work addresses the control problem related to the bidirectional velocity of a DC motor feeded by a DC/DC Buck converter–inverter as power amplifier. While various power electronic topologies have been proposed in literature, this research focuses on one that was previously disregarded due to its delivery of pulse width modulated voltage signals instead of smooth voltage signals to the DC motor. However, in the present paper it is demonstrated that by appropriately controlling the power electronic converter it is indeed possible to deliver the desired smooth voltage signals to the motor. Moreover, the proposed control strategy is robust, employing multiple proportional-integral loops, and a sliding mode controller. A formal proof of asymptotic stability is provided and the robustness is verified through experimental validation.

This paper presents a two-stage control design for the “Buck power converter/DC motor” system, which allows to perform the sensorless angular velocity trajectory tracking task. The differential flatness property of the DC-motor model is exploited in order to propose a first-stage controller, which is designed to achieve the desired angular velocity trajectory. This controller provides the voltage profiles that must be tracked by the Buck converter. Then, a second-stage controller is meant to assure the aforementioned. This controller is based on flatness property of the Buck power converter model, which provides the input voltage to the DC motor. Due to the fact that the two-stage controller proposed uses the average model of the system, as a practical and effective implementation of this controller, aΣ − Δ-modulator is employed. Finally, in order to verify the control performance of this approach, numerical simulations are included.