Docking Maneuvers for Heavy Transport Vehicles: Stabilization Control with Nonlinear Disturbance Observer

This article proposes a nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO) based controller for autonomous heavy transport vehicles to enable robust and efficient docking maneuvers during backward motion. The proposed controller leverages a nonlinear lumped disturbance observer to accurately estimate and compensate for disturbances that can impact the vehicle’s performance. A point stabilization-based controller is employed to provide accurate and precise docking maneuver. The combined use of the NDO and point stabilization-based controller ensures asymptotical stability and performance of the system. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in an autonomous heavy transport vehicle and show improvements over other approaches. This article contributes to the advancement of autonomous vehicle control strategies, providing a novel solution for addressing the challenges of disturbance compensation and maneuvering.