A trajectory tracking control scheme design for nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots with low-level control systems

Motivated by formation control of multiple non-holonomic mobile robots, this paper presents a trajectory tracking control scheme design for nonholonomic mobile robots that are equipped with low-level linear and angular velocities control systems. The design includes a nonlinear kinematic trajectory tracking control law and a tracking control gains selection method that provide a means to implement the nonlinear tracking control law systematically based on the dynamic control performance of the robot´s low-level control systems. In addition, the proposed scheme, by design, enables the mobile robot to execute reference trajectories that are represented by time-parameterized waypoints. This feature provides the scheme a generic interface with higher-level trajectory planners. The trajectory tracking control scheme is validated using an iRobot Packbot´s parameteric model estimated from experimental data.