Adaptive control of dynamic mobile robots with nonholonomic constraints

This paper presents adaptive control rules, at the dynamics level, for the nonholonomic mobile robots with unknown dynamic parameters. Adaptive controls are derived for mobile robots, using backstepping technique, for tracking of a reference trajectory and stabilization to a fixed posture. For the tracking problem, the controller guarantees the asymptotic convergence of the tracking error to zero. For stabilization, the problem is converted to an equivalent tracking problem, using a time varying error feedback, before the tracking control is applied. The designed controller ensures the asymptotic zeroing of the stabilization error. The proposed control laws include a velocity/acceleration limiter that prevents the robot's wheels from slipping. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.