Motion control with robust string stability of mobile-rack vehicles in autonomous logistics

Abstract

In order to reduce costs for a larger warehouse or expand the floor space of a small warehouse, it is impossible to implement this with a traditional warehouse, which is characterized as poorly utilized space. For the efficient storage and retrieval, the smart warehouse system with autonomous mobile-rack vehicles can optimize the space utilization by providing only a few open aisles at a time for accessing the racks with minimal intervention. This paper deals with designing the vehicle robust controller for maintaining safe spacing with collision avoidance in the fully automated warehouse. The compact vehicle dynamics are presented for the interconnected string of vehicles. Next, the string stability with safe working space of the mobile-rack vehicles has been described for guaranteeing complete autonomous logistics in smart warehouse. In addition, the controller order has been significantly reduced to a low-order system without performance degradation for real implementation. This control method can guarantee control stability as well as performances of mobile-rack vehicles against unavoidable uncertainties, disturbances, and noises for warehouse automation in the extremely cold environment without rail rack. Finally, the autonomous mobile-rack vehicle system is to become the promising vision of future smart warehouse technology in autonomous logistics.

Keywords

Mobile-rack smart warehouse vehicle dynamics string stability uncertainties robust control

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Godbole

Lygeros

Longitudinal control of the lead car of a platoon. IEEE Trans Veh Technol 1994; 43: 1125–1135.

Sivaji

Sailaja

Adaptive cruise control system for vehicle modeling using stop and go manoeuvres. IJERA Int J Eng Res Appl 2013; 3: 2453–2456.

Tai

Tomizuka

Robust longitudinal velocity tracking of vehicles using traction and brake control. Proc Int Workshop Adv Motion Control 2000; 6: 305–310.

Hsu

Wang

Lee

, et al. Longitudinal control of vehicle platoon via wavelet neural network. IEEE Int Conf Syst Man Cybernet 2005; 4: 3811–3816.

Gao

Zheng

, et al. Robust control of heterogeneous vehicular platoon with uncertainty dynamics and communication delay. J IET Intell Transp Syst 2016; 10: 503–513.

Gao

Dang

Huang

, et al. Decoupled robust control of vehicular platoon with identical controller and rigid information flow. Int J Automot Technol 2017; 18: 157–164.

Guo

Yue

Autonomous platoon control allowing range-limited sensors. IEEE Trans Veh Technol 2012; 61: 2901–2912.

Stankovic

Stanojevic

Siljak

Decentralized overlapping control of a platoon of vehicles. IEEE Trans Contr Syst Technol 2000; 8: 816–832.

Herman

Martinec

Hurak

, et al. Harmonic instability of asymmetric bidirectional control of a vehicular platoon. IEEE Proc Am Control Conf 2014; 1: 5396–5401.

10.

Rajamani

Choi

Law

, et al. and Experimental implementation of longitudinal control for a platoon of automated vehicles. J Dyn Syst Measure Control 2000; 122: 470–476.

11.

Zhuang

Yin

, et al. Simultaneous longitudinal and lateral control of vehicle platoon subject to stochastic communication delays. J Dyn Syst Measure Control 2018; 141: 044503.

12.

Zhou

Ahn

Wang

, et al. Stabilizing mixed vehicular platoons with connected automated vehicles: an H-infinity approach. Transport Res Proc 2019; 38: 441–461.

13.

Kamali

Dennis

McAree

, et al. Formal verification of autonomous vehicle platooning. Sci Comput Program 2017; 148: 88–106.

14.

Lijuan

Yuanwei

Xue

, et al. Robust string stability controller design of a platoon of vehicles based on LMI approach. Sci IFAC Proc Vol 2005; 38: 174–178.

15.

Meng

Tom

, et al. A robust longitudinal control strategy of platoons under model uncertainties and time delays. J Adv Transport 2018; 15: 1–13.

16.

Gong

Zhao

Sampled-data vehicular platoon control with communication delay. J Syst Control Eng 2018; 232: 1–11.

17.

Wen

Guo

Chen

, et al. Event-triggered cooperative control of vehicle platoons in vehicular ad hoc networks. Inf Sci 2018; 459: 341–353.

18.

Yanakiev

Kanellakopoulos

Variable time headway for string stability of automated heavy-duty vehicles. IEEE Proc Conf Decis Control 1995; 34: 4077–4081.

19.

Wang

Stengel

RF.

Robust control of nonlinear systems with parametric uncertainty. J IFAC 2002; 38: 1591–1599.

20.

Young

Newlin

Doyle

JC.

Analysis with real parametric uncertainty. IEEE Proc Decis Control Conf 1991; 30: 1251–1256.

21.

Skogestad

Postlethwaite

Multivariable feedback control analysis and design (Chapter 7). Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2003.

22.

Doyle

Stein

Multivariable feedback design: concepts for a classical/modern synthesis. IEEE Trans Automat Contr 1981; 26: 4–16.

23.

Doyle

Glover

Khargonekar

, et al. State-space solution to standard and control problems. IEEE Trans Automat Contr 1989; 34: 831–847.

24.

Liang

Peng

String stability analysis of adaptive cruise controlled vehicles. JSME Int J Series C, Mech Syst, Machne Elements Manuf 2000; 43: 671–677.

25.

Zoran

Muhidin

Singular perturbation analysis of system order reduction via system balancing. Proc Am Control Conf 2000; 1: 2420–2424.

26.

Samar

Postlethwaite

DW.

Applications of the singular perturbation approximation of balanced system. IEEE Proc Control Appl Conf 1994; 28: 1823–1828.

27.

Young

JS.

The best optimal Hankel-Norm approximation of railway active wheelset models. IEEE Proc Am Control Conf 2010; 1: 2724–2729.