A Comparative Study of PI Controller Performance in Simulated and Real-World Interplanetary Rover Actuator Systems

This paper presents a comprehensive study on the application of Proportional-Integral (PI) controller for regulating the output speed of a motor employed in interplanetary rovers, making use of an Arduino UNO micro controller which serves as the PI controller and sensor interface for the experimental setup. The research provides insight on controller performance and the importance of accurate parameter estimation in modelling actuators for interplanetary rovers dealing with extreme terrain disturbances. The investigation involves experimental data obtained from the motor encoder, which is contrasted with a simulated model created in Simulink. The model is established utilizing Parameter Estimation Optimization Technique to satisfy the physical constraints and consistency of the simulation with the physical system. The comparative analysis focuses on the time response characteristics of both the simulated and experimental data when subjected to a step input. To enhance controller performance, the motor is subjected to PID tuning utilizing the trial-and-error method. Through this study, the ideal values of proportional and integral gains were found to be 0.5 and 2 respectively. With the obtained values of controller parameters, the actuator responds with an overshoot of 4.41% and a settling time of 1.35s. The experimental and simulated responses show very close agreement with each other, thus validating the parameters estimated through optimization. The response obtained with the implementation of a PI Controller shows great improvement over the response obtained in the absence of the PI controller, demonstrating the importance of implementing a PI controller in interplanetary applications.