Velocity and position trajectory tracking through sliding mode control of two-wheeled self-balancing mobile robot

Two-wheeled self balancing mobile robots have many challenging system properties when considering velocity and position tracking. The under-actuated, nonlinear, unstable, non-minimum phase dynamics cause the system to react violently and erratically to controller inputs. In order to properly handle such dynamics, an under-actuated sliding mode control scheme was implemented and tested using a variety of control parameters, desired trajectories, and disturbances. The controller was successfully able to track velocity setpoints while maintaining system stability.