Stabilization control of a backward tractor-trailer mobile robot

A backward motion control method for the stabilization problem of a tractor-trailer mobile robot is proposed in this paper. The idea of the proposed method relies basically on the fact that the trailer is stable when the tractor goes forward. Others, when the robot goes backward, a virtual tractor is constructed that drags the trailer with forward speed and equivalent kinematics with respect to the real tractor. Due to the system does not satisfy the involutive condition, dynamic extension is implemented to get an exact linearization form. The feedback stabilization control law is thus deduced based on the transformed linear system. Results of numerical simulation illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.