Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Control for a Maneuverable Vehicle with Prescribed Performance

Considering the increasing need for swift and precise response of the attitude control system of high-speed maneuverable vehicles with uncertainty and external interference, this paper proposes a fixed-time fast terminal sliding mode control (FTSMC) method that considers prescribed performance requirements. Initially, a control model of a maneuverable vehicle is established, and the tracking errors are constrained using a prescribed performance function (PPF) to obtain the transformed errors subsequently, on the basis of transformed errors, a fixed-time sliding mode surface is introduced. An innovative fixed-time FTSMC is carried out to integrate the sliding mode surface and the estimate of the composite disturbance obtained from the observer. The stability of the system is verified using the Lyapunov stability theory. At last, the validity of the raised controller is proven according to simulations, and a comparative analysis is conducted with the simulation results of two other control methods to further illustrate the certain advantages of this method in terms of convergence speed and oscillation mitigation.