Decoupling and robust control of velocity-varying four-wheel steering vehicles with uncertainties via solving Attenuating Diagonal Decoupling problem

This paper is devoted to solve the combined problem of input–output decoupling and robust control of the four-wheel steering vehicles. A more practical three-degree-of-freedom systems covering longitudinal, lateral and yaw motions are used to improve the safety and steerability while uncertainties and external disturbances are considered. A novel decoupling conception Attenuating Diagonal Decoupling and a new index Coupling Attenuation Index are introduced and the system is divided up into two systems with a special structure. The first system is caused by uncertainties and disturbances and the second system is a certain system coupling with the first one. A control scheme composed of a coupling attention controller and a decoupling controller are explored. The influences of the uncertainties and disturbances on the output are attenuated under the coupling index by the coupling attention controller designed for the first system while the input–output decoupling is achieved by employing the decoupling controller designed for the second system. Furthermore, we prove in theory that the input–output decoupling and robust control are both established for the closed-loop system of the control scheme and the primordial vehicle system. Besides these works, a switching law is introduced such that the above excellent performances are realizable in four-wheel steering vehicles with conventional steering interfaces. Simulations show that even with a large velocity varying range, the decoupling and robust performances are guaranteed simultaneously, i.e. the handling stability and steerability are improved.