Motion control of a skid-steering robot using transverse function approach - experimental evaluation

This paper is focused on a hybrid control solution designed for a skid-steering vehicle for point-to-point motion. It is assumed that the vehicle moves with limited velocities and accelerations in order to reduce excessive slip and skid effects. In order to obtain desired control properties, a motion planner is combined with a universal stabilizer taking advantage of transverse functions. To improve tracking precision the generalized type of transverse function is deployed and a new adaptive technique for the controller tuning is proposed. The planer is used to compute an auxiliary trajectory connecting points in the configuration space and satisfying assumed phase constraints. The control system is implemented using a laboratory skid-steering robot. The performance of the controller is verified experimentally and the results are discussed.