Circular periodic motion generation for mobile robots using limit cycle systems

This paper considers the problem of circular periodic motion generation for nonholonomic mobile robots. By employing a nonlinear system exhibiting limit cycle behavior, we provide a control law that stabilizes a nonholonomic mobile robot to a circular path with the prescribed direction of rotation and speed. Stability of the resulting circular periodic motion of the mobile robot is shown by linear stability analysis of a suitably defined error system. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the proposed method.