Actuator fault detection for unmanned ground vehicles considering friction coefficients

This paper proposes an actuator fault detection method for unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) dynamics with four mecanum wheels. The actuator fault detection method is based on unknown input observers for linear parameter varying systems. The technical novelty of current work compared to similar work in the literature is that wheel frictions are directly taken into account in the dynamics of UGV, and unknown input observers are developed accordingly. Including the wheel friction, the vehicle dynamics are in the form of linear parameter varying systems. Friction estimation is also discussed in this work, and the effect of friction mismatch was quantitatively investigated by simulations. The effectiveness of proposed method was evaluated under various operation scenarios of the UGV.