Development and Modeling of Remotely Operated Scaled Multi-wheeled Combat Vehicle Using System Identification

This paper describes the development and modeling of a remotely operated scaled multi-wheeled combat vehicle (ROMWCV) using system identification methodology for heading angle tracking. The vehicle was developed at the vehicle dynamics and crash research (VDCR) Lab at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) to analyze the characteristics of the full-size model. For such vehicles, the development of controllers is considered the most crucial issue. In this paper, the ROMWCV is developed first. An experimental test was carried out to record and analyze the vehicle input/output signals in open loop system, which is considered a multi-input-single-output (MISO) system. Subsequently, a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) was developed for heading angle tracking. The experiments showed that it was feasible to represent the dynamic characteristics of the vehicle using the system identification technique. The estimation and validation results demonstrated that the obtained identified model was able to explain 88.44% of the output variation. In addition, the developed FLC showed a good heading angle tracking.