Adaptive Fuzzy-PI control for active front steering system of armoured vehicles: Outer loop control design for firing on the move system

Abstract

An armoured vehicle tends to lose its dynamic mobility when firing on the move. This is due to the effect of the firing force that reacts at the centre of the weapon platform, which creates an unwanted yaw moment at the vehicle's centre of gravity. In order to enhance the mobility performance of the armoured vehicle, a control strategy, i.e. yaw rejection control, is designed and test on an armoured vehicle model. The purpose of the control strategy is to maintain the directional mobility of the armoured vehicle by providing a steering correction angle to the pitman arm steering system. The control strategy proposed in this study consists of two main structures: yaw rate feedback control using a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller and Lateral Force Rejection Control (LFRC) using an adaptive Fuzzy-Proportional-Integral (adaptive Fuzzy-PI) controller. The simulation results in terms of yaw and lateral motions were observed, and the proposed control strategy was shown to successfully improve the directional mobility of the armoured vehicle after firing. The benefit of the proposed control strategy with adaptive fuzzy-PI control is evaluated by comparing its performance to fuzzy-PI and proportional-integral (PI) control strategies.