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Trajectory Tracking for Twin Rotor System Using Fuzzy Logic

Sliding Mode Control

A. J. Mehta1 Goshaidas Ray2 and Sarit Kumar Das2

Abstract: The paper presents the design and implementation of Fuzzy Sliding Mode
Controller (FSMC) to achieve desired tracking performance. The proposed controller uses
both fuzzy and sliding mode control strategies and establishes the control rules. The design
procedure is non-mathematical and simple where the switching functions and the fuzzy rules
are the main two components of the FSMC controller. The proposed controller is applied on
2-DOF of twin rotor system to track the desired time varying trajectory. Experimental
results are presented.

Index Terms: 2-DOF motion, twin rotor MIMO system, fuzzy logic control, sliding mode
control.

1.INTRODUCTION e-mail: gray@ee.iitkgp.ernet.in

In the formulation of any control problem
there will typically be discrepancies between the
actual plant and the mathematical model developed
for controller design. This mismatch may be due to
unmodel dynamics, variation in system parameters
or the approximation of complex plant by
straightforward model. The resulting controller
should be able to satisfy the requirements despite of
such mismatch, which leads to robust control
approach. One such approach is sliding mode
control that is a particular type of variable structure
control. Sliding mode control (SMC) systems have
been studied extensively and received many
applications.
In variable structure control strategy with
sliding mode control (SMC), control laws are
designed to drive the system states toward a specific
sliding surface. When the system states hit the
sliding surface, the system response is governed by
the surface; consequently the robustness to the
uncertainty or disturbance is achieved [1]-[2].
However, it is known that there is a major drawback
in the sliding mode control approach: undesired
phenomenon of chattering due to high frequency
switching, which will excite undesired dynamics.
1
Lecturer,S.V.M. Institute of Technology, Bharuch,
Gujrat. e-mail: mehta_a_j@rediffmail.com
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302, India.
e-mail: skd@ee.iitkgp.ernet.in
Chattering may be eliminated by various softening
techniques [3]-[4]. It is also well known that fuzzy
control strategy with boundary layer can solve this
problem. Combination of fuzzy control scheme with
sliding mode control has been used extensively for
solving the control problems [5]-[6]. An application
of sliding mode control associated with the model
reference following for designing a helicopter flight
control can be found in [7].
In this paper, the fuzzy sliding mode controller
(FSMC) uses both fuzzy and SM control strategies
and establishes the control rules. The development
of proposed control scheme is based on the design
of switching functions and fuzzy rules in order to
have desired time varying trajectory tracking of
twin rotor system.
The paper is organized as: Section 2 states the
system description and the problem statement. In
section 3, the sliding mode control approach is
described briefly. Section 4 deals with the design
procedure of Fuzzy Sliding Mode Controller
(FSMC) for twin rotor system. The Experimental
results and concluding remarks are presented in
section 5 and 6 respectively.
2. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND PROBLEM
STATEMENT
The fig.1 shows an aero dynamical system
similar to the helicopter [8]. The beam joining two
1
rotors is pivoted at the center that allows the two By applying Newton’s second law, the detail state
ends of beam to move on spherical surface. There is space model can be found in [8] and we describe
a counter weight fixed to the beam and it here only the following terms that are directly link
determines the stable equilibrium position. At both with our present work.
ends of the beam, pivoting on its base, there are two
propellers driven by DC motors. The system is S h 
balanced in such a way, that when motors are α 
 h
switched off the main rotor end of beam is lowered u h  u 
and stabilizes at the shown position in fig.1. The U =   is the input(dc voltages), X =  hh  = state vector,
u v  S v 
system has two degrees of freedom - the beam can α v 
rotate about a vertical axis and a horizontal axis.  
When setting parameters or when not in use, either u vv 
or both axis of rotation can be locked by means of Ω h 
two locking screws shown in fig.1. When the α 
 h
horizontal axis locking screw is released, the ω 
heavier weight of vertical rotor should cause the and y =  t  = output vector
rotor assembly arm to rest at an angle of Ω v 
α v 
approximately 280 to the horizontal. This is required  
for proper functioning of the system as then power ω m 
must be applied to vertical rotor in order to raise the
arm to a vertical position. The distance between the where,
plastic vertical rotor guard and the rotor arm boss Sv , Sh are moments of momentum of the beam in
should be approximately 80mm. both axis (auxiliary variables),
The states of the beam are described by four αv , αh are the pitch angle and the azimuth angle of
process variables. Position sensors fitted at the pivot the beam,
and two corresponding angular velocities measure Ωv, Ωh are the angular velocities of the beam
horizontal and vertical angles. Two additional around the horizontal and vertical axis,
measurements are the angular velocities of the ωm ,ωt are the angular velocities of the main andtail
rotors, measured by techogenerators coupled with rotor and they are nonlinear functions of input
the driving DC motors. supply voltages u h and u v , respectively. u hh and
In a normal helicopter, changing the angle of u vv can be expressed as dynamic equations in terms
attack controls the aero dynamical force.. The aero-
of main rotor inputs and angular velocities.
dynamical force is controlled by varying the speed
of the rotors and so the control inputs (in this case
Model of the TRMS
the supply voltage of the DC motors). A change in
• 2- DOF (two degree of freedom) complete
voltage value, result in change of the rotational
model of TRMS is considered based on the
speed of the propellers that result in a change of the
non-linear equations and details can be
corresponding position of the beam. There is
found in [8].
significant cross coupling observed between the
actions of the rotors means each rotor influences
.
both position angles.
The mathematical model of TRMS is
considered under the following assumptions [8].
• The dynamics of the propeller subsystem
can be described by first order differential
equation.
• The friction in the system is of viscous type.
• The propeller subsystem can be described in
accordance with the postulates of the flow
theory.

2
 From Lyapunov stability theorem, it can be shown
Fig.1 The Twin Rotor MIMO System Assembly [8] that if V& (t ) is negative definite, the system
trajectory will be driven and attracted towards the
sliding surface and remain sliding on it until the
origin is reached asymptotically.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
V& = ss& = s (C1 x&1 + x& 2 ) = s[C1 x 2 + f ( x) + b( x)u + d (t )]
We design a cross-coupled FSMC in such (5)
away so that the beam of TRMS can track the It can be noted from (5) that if u has the following
desired trajectories in both planes by processing form, V& will be negative.
local output measurements only. In other words, the D
control objective is to make the beam rotate quickly u = u1 − K sgn( s ), K > (6)
b( x )
and accurately in accordance with the time varying
signals of the pitch angle ( α v ) and the azimuth where,
− C1 x 2 − f ( x)
angle ( α h ) respectively. Control input to each u=
b( x )
driving unit (plane) is the resultant of two output
(7)
control signals ( u h = u d ,hh + u c ,vh , u v = u d ,vv + u c ,hv )
 1 if s > 0
and function of each part of the control input will be 
discussed at length. sgn( s ) =  0 if s = 0
− 1 if s < 0

3. CONCEPT OF SLIDING MODE (8)
CONTROLLER FOR NONLINEAR SYSTEM The controller shown in (6) will have high
frequency chattering near the sliding surface due to
sgn function involved. These drastic changes of
Consider a non-linear system that can be input can be avoided by introducing a boundary
presented by following state space model form layer with width Φ and replacing sgn( s ) with
sat( s /Ф) in (6) we have,
x&1 (t ) = x2 (t ) 
 (1)
&x2 (t ) = f ( x1 , x2 ) + b ( x1 , x2 )u + d (t ) 

u = u1 − K sgn( s / Φ ), Φ>0 (9)
y (t ) = x1 (t ) 

where, ψ = s / Φ
where, x = [ x1 , x 2 ]T is the state vector, f (x) and
1 if ψ >0
b(x) are non-linear functions, u is the control input, 
and d (t ) is the external disturbances. The sgn(ψ ) = 0 if ψ = 0 (10)
− 1 if ψ < 0
disturbances are bounded as d (t ) ≤ D . A sliding 
mode that is insensitive to parameter fluctuations Comments:
and disturbances can be constructed as follows.
Define a linear function (sliding surface) • K is known as hitting control gain whose
s = C1x1 + x2 (2) purpose is to make sliding surface ( ss& < 0 )
and also K should be large enough to
which is measure of the distance of the current state
overcome the effect of disturbance.
to the sliding surface; C1 is real and positive. Then
the dynamic behavior of (1) on sliding surface is • Since the width of boundary Ф indicates the
described by ultimate bound of the system trajectories, we
can arbitrarily adjust the steady state error
x 2 + C1 x1 = 0 (3)
by proper selection of Ф. However, a small
Now consider a Lyapunov function Ф might produce a boundary layer so thin
1 that it risks exciting high frequency.
V = s 2 (t ) (4)
2
4. DEVELOPMENT OF FUZZY SLIDING MODE
3
 CONTROLLE (FSMC) • Tracking in horizontal plane
In this section, the sliding mode controller is As shown in fig.2, the FSMC for horizontal
designed with respect to phase plane determined by plane tracking employs two input variables: the
error in the horizontal plane angle eh (or error in sliding signal s h ( e h , e& h ) and the rate of change of
vertical plane angle ev ) and the change in error in sliding signal s& h ( e h , e& h ). Where, e h is the tracking
horizontal plane angle e&h (or change in error in error in horizontal plane defined as
eh = α acth − α dh and e& h is the rate of change of tracking
vertical plane angle e&v ). The design approach is to
error in horizontal plane defined as
divide the phase plane into two semi-planes, by e&h = (ehcurrent − ehprevious ) / Ts ,
means of switching line. The magnitude of the
control output depends on the distance of the state where, Ts is the sampling time.
vector from the switching line. A fuzzy value for The sliding surface, sh ( e h , e& h ) is given by:
the control variable is determined according to sh = e&h + λ eh ,
fuzzy values of sliding surface s and rate of change Where, λ is the strictly positive constant and rate of
in sliding surface s& . change in sliding surface s& h ( e h , e& h ) is
As per standard procedure, a fuzzy s&h = ( shcurrent − shprevious ) / Ts
controller design consists of three main
components. A simplified block diagram of fuzzy sliding mode
i) Fuzzification controller is shown in fig.3.
ii) Control rule base establishment
iii) Defuzzification uh
s& h , s&v Fuzzy sliding mode
• 2-DOF cross-coupled FSMC for tracking Controller
sh , sv
The basic control scheme for decentralized FSMC uv
controller with cross-coupled control terms is shown
in fig.2. Fig.3 Fuzzy Sliding Mode Controller

u d ,hh The design of sliding surface can be found out in

uh [2], [9]. The input membership functions of the
s h , s&h +
FSMC for horizontal tracking control problem are
FSMChh
shown in fig.4. The controller has a single output
that is characterized by four fuzzy singletons NB,
+ u c ,vh NS, PS, and PB over the interval u d ,hh ∈ [-0.6, -0.3,
FSMCvh
0.3, 0.6].
u c ,hv
Fuzzy rule base for horizontal plane:
FSMChv
+ The following four control rules are designed:
FSMCvv
R1: If sh is P AND s& h is P THEN output is NB
s v , s&v + uv
u d ,vv R2: If s h is P AND s& h is N THEN output is NS
R3: If s h is N AND s& h is P THEN output is PS
Fig. 2 Block diagram of FSMC for 2-DOF twin R4: If s h is N AND s& h is N THEN output is PB
rotor system.
where P and N stands for positive and negative, and
For the time varying trajectory tracking of twin B and S for big and small, respectively. In these
rotor system, we consider the following input and rules, AND is Mamdani’s min operator defined by
output linguistic variables and it is discussed in µA AND µB = min (µA, µB), µA and µB are two
detail. membership values over the fuzzy subsets A and B

4
respectively. The above four rules can be
understood as follows. For rule1, condition s h = P
implies that the variables e and e& are above the
sliding surface AND s& h = P means that both the
variables e and e& are moving further away from
sliding surface. Hence the control input need to set
negative big (NB) so the variables e and e& move
towards the sliding surface. Other rules can be
explained in the same manner.
µ(uh)
Fig.4 Input ( sh , s&h ) and output ( uh ) member-
ship functions for horizontal tracking
Defuzzification
We have applied weighted average (center of mass)
method, defined as the sum of products of each
membership function’s center and height divided by
the sum of all the membership function’s height as
follows
Z0 =
∑Z h i i
∑h i
• Tracking in vertical plane
The above design procedure is adopted to
solve the vertical plane trajectory control problem.
It can be mentioned that the gravitational force
acting on the vertical plane is a function of pitch
angle ( α v ) that affects the dynamic characteristic of
the system. So the fuzzy rule base strategies for
positive and negative vertical half planes are quite
different to have desired trajectory. The FSMC for
vertical plane tracking employs two input variables:
the sliding signal s v ( ev , e&v ) and the rate of change
of sliding signal s&v ( ev , e&v ). The tracking error ev in
vertical plane is defined as
ev = α actv − α dv
and e&v is the rate of change of tracking error in
vertical plane defined as
e&v = (evcurrent − evprevious ) / Ts ,
where, Ts is the sampling time.
The sliding surface s v ( ev , e&v ), is given by
sv = e&v + λ ev ,
where, λ is the strictly positive constant.
and rate of change in sliding surface s&v ( ev , e&v ) is
expressed as
s&v = ( svcurrent − svprevious ) / Ts ,
The membership functions are shown in figs.5 and
6.
Rule base for vertical plane in positive half plane is
R1: If sv is P AND s&v is P THEN output is NS
R2: If s v is P AND s&v is N THEN output is NS
R3: If s v is N AND s&v is P THEN output is PS
R4: If s v is N AND s&v is N THEN output is PB
Rule base for vertical plane in negative half plane:
5
R1: If sv is P AND s&v is P THEN output is NB
R2: If s v is P AND s&v is N THEN output is NM
R3: If s v is N AND s&v is P THEN output is NS
R4: If s v is N AND s&v is N THEN output is PB
Fig.5 Input ( sv , s&v ) membership functions for
vertical plane tracking
Fig.5. output ( uv ) membership functions for 1-DOF
Fig.6 Output ( u d ,vv ) membership functions for vertical plane
In this case we have also used weighted average
defuzzification method to get the output of the
controller in crisp value. It can be noted that the
influence of each plane motion largely affects the
other and makes the system completely unstable
while only the control actions u d ,hh (t ) and u d ,vv (t )
act independently in horizon and vertical plane
motors. So to reduce the coupling effect and to
stabilize the TRMS system, we introduced cross
coupling controllers that are expressed as
u h = u d ,hh + u c ,vh and u v = u d ,vv + u c ,hv respectively.
The resultant control law u h (t ) acts on the
horizontal rotor whereas u v (t ) acts on the vertical
rotor in order to stabilize the composite system and
also to follow the desired trajectory. The role of
both parts of control law u c,vh and u c ,hv effectively
reduces the influence of interactions terms between
the horizontal and vertical plane rotors.
For cross-coupling controllers, we have used
three linguistic terms for each input variables
( sh , s&h , s v , s&v ). So there will be 9 rules for each
controller. The membership functions and rule
matrices are given in figs.7 and 8 respectively.

µ(uv)

µ(uv)

6
Fig.7 Input-output membership functions for cross- Actual output responses of α v and α v when PID
coupled control terms ( FSMChv and FSMCvh) and FSMC control laws are implemented in the
u c ,vh and u c ,hv TRMS, are shown in figs. 9-11. It is observed from
figs. that the FSMC control laws, however, possibly
capable of achieving at least reasonably same
performance as that of PID controller and moreover,
it appears that the proposed controller has a
capability to track any slowly varying reference
s&h trajectory. In true sense the FSMC controller
s&v performance can be improved by proper tuning the
sv NS ZO PS sh NS ZO PS width of the membership functions using genetic
NS PB PS PS NS PB PS PS algorithm.
ZO NB ZO PB ZO NB ZO PB 6. CONCLUSIONS
PS ZO NS NB PS ZO NS NB
A fuzzy logic sliding mode controller for
TRMS has been proposed and successfully
employed to track the desire trajectories. We have
(a) (b) compared the performance of the proposed
controller with the existing PID controller for (i)
Fig.8 Fuzzy rule matrices for cross-coupling sinusoidal (ii) triangular (iii) square reference
controllers: (a) FSMChv (b) FSMCvh signals. From the experimental results presented in
this paper, we can reach to a conclusion that the
5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS proposed control scheme provides an alternative
In order to implement the proposed fuzzy approach that can effectively track the desired
logic controller in PC-based TRMS, we have trajectory. It appears that the proposed fuzzy SM
written the fuzzy sliding mode control algorithm (If controller can approximately track even any slowly
– Then rules) in C – coded form and are embedded varying reference trajectory. Moreover the proposed
in to external interface of TRMS for creating an controller is attractive especially for the system
external DLL library. The external DLL contains when the knowledge about the mathematical
the controller and the interface software written in description of the control system is not available
special form required by real-time kernel. DLL and also the inferring control actions are based on
library is the main part of the system. During on- fewer switching control rules. We need to pay a
line operation, the RTK library calls the external special attention on the design issue of vertical
controller procedure during an interrupt time and plane control law (uv) in order to reduce the tracking
passes all the measurements to the controller error (ev) and simultaneously to reduce further the
procedure. The controller procedure then returns pitch angle ( α v ) oscillation around the desire
control value for digital to analog converter, which
trajectory.
are connected to the D.C motor drives. The success
of the proposed fuzzy sliding stabilizing controller
REFERENCES:
is tested on TRMS for 2-DOF trajectory tracking
control problem and the corresponding rules specify
1. V. I. Utkin, Sliding Modes and Their
the relationship between the input variables ( s h or Applications. Moscow, Russia, Mir, 1978.
s v and s&h or s&v ) and the output variables ( u h or u v ) 2. Christopher Edward and Sarah K. Spurgeon,
in the controller. For evaluating the performance of Sliding Mode Control: Theory and application,
the proposed FSMC for a set point reference 1998.
trajectory tracking, we have considered three 3. G. Bartoline and P. Pydynowski, “an improved
different reference trajectory signals, namely chattering free VSC scheme for uncertain
sinusoidal, triangular and square reference signals. dynamic control” IEEE Trans. Automat. Contrl.,
The experimental results of proposed controller are vol.-41, pp.1220-1226,1996.
compared with the existing PID controller [8]. 4. M.H. Park and K.S.Kim, “Chattering reduction
in the position control of induction motor using
7
 sliding mode control” IEEE Trans. On Power
electronics, vol.6, pp.317-325.
5. C. L .Chen, M. H. Chang, “Optimal design of
fuzzy sliding-mode control: a coparative study,
Fuzzy sets and systems, vol.93, pp.37-48, 1998.

6. Q. P. Ha, Q. H. Nguyen, D. C. Rye and H. F. 8. Manual on Twin Rotor MIMO System by

Durrant-Whyte, “Fuzzy sliding-mode feedback instrument Ltd, 1999.
controllers with applications,” IEEE Trans. On 9. L.A. Zadeh, “Fuzzy sets” Information and
Industrial Electronics, vol.48, pp.38-46, 2001. control, vol.18,pp.338-353,1965.
7. A. J. fossard, “ Helicopter control law based on
sliding mode with following” Int. J. of control,
vol.57, pp.1221-1235, 1993.

05 0.5 actual
actual

αv 0
αv
0

desire desire
-0.5 -0.5
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Time[in sec.] Time[in sec.]
1 1
actual actual
0.5 0.5
αh 0
αh 0

-0.5 -0 5
desire
desire
-1 -1
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Time[in sec.] Time[in sec.]

(a) Coupled FSM - controller (b) Coupled PID controller

Fig. 9 Experimental results for 2-DOFof TRMS using different controllers.

8
 1 0.6
actual desire actual desire
0.4
0.5
0.2
αv
αv 0
0
-0.2
-0.5 -0.4
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Time[in sec.] Time[in sec.]
1 2
actual actual
0.5 1

αh αh 0
0
-1
-0.5 -2 desire
desire
-1 -3
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Time[in sec.] Time[in sec.]
(a) Coupled FSM controller (b) Coupled PID controller

Fig.10 Experimental results for 2-DOF of TRMS using different controllers.

0.5 0.5
desire desire
αv
αv
0 0

actual actual
-0.5
0 20 40 60 -0.5 20 40 60
Time[in sec.] Time[in sec.]
1 1
desire actual
αh
αh
0 0

actual desire
-1 -1
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Time[in sec.] Time[in sec.]
9
(a) Coupled FSM controller (b) Coupled PID controller
10