Application of MIMO Disturbance Observer to Control of an Electric Wheelchair Using NSGA-II

Electric wheelchairs (EW) experience various terrain surfaces and slopes as well as occupants with diverse weights. This, in turn, imparts a substantial amount of perturbation to the EW dynamics. In this paper, we make use of a two-degree-of-freedom control architecture called disturbance observer (DOB) which reduces sensitivity to model uncertainties, while enhancing rejection of disturbances caused due to entering slopes. The feedback loop which is designed via characteristic loci method is then augmented with a DOB with a parameterized low-pass filter. According to disturbance rejection, sensitivity reduction, and noise rejection of the whole controller, three performance indices are defined which enable us to pick the filter's optimal parameters using a multi-objective optimization approach called non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II. Finally, experimental results show desirable improvement in stiffness and disturbance rejection of the proposed controller as well as its robust stability.