Virtual-Physical Tracking Control for a Car-Like Mobile Robot Based on Digital Twin Technology

In this article, a digital twin system is investigated to achieve virtual–physical tracking control for a car-like mobile robot (CLMR). The digital twin system consisted of a physical entity, a virtual entity, and a virtual–physical interaction module for the CLMR. The virtual–physical tracking control is used to complete motion mapping from the physical entity to the virtual entity. Although external disturbances acting on the physical entity are different from the virtual entity, only one nonlinear extended state observer is designed in this article, which is suitable in estimating the external disturbances for both the physical and the virtual entities. A backstepping controller and an integral sliding mode controller are designed for both the physical and the virtual entities to realize motion mapping. Experiment results show effectiveness and superiority of the virtual–physical tracking control by digital twin technology for the CLMR.