Curvature based point stabilization for compliant framed wheeled modular mobile robots

Posture stabilization of a compliant framed modular mobile robot is the subject of this paper. This is a new type of wheeled mobile robot that has advantages of a simple modular design that provides full suspension and steering capability without any additional components. Steering is achieved by coordinated control of the individual wheels to realize a desired trajectory. Due to the flexible nature of the robot, the kinematics is simplified by using an equivalent curvature based model, which increases mobility and decreases required traction forces for improved towing capacity. A time invariant control law is developed and extended to compensate for non-ideal initial conditions and drift. Simulation and experimental results are presented and show the proposed control law performs as expected.