PATH-TRACKING FOR A TRACTOR-TRAILER-LIKE ROBOT

Path-tracking controller for tractor-trailer-like robots are designed by generalizing the geometric path-tracking approach currently adopted for car-like robots. This is done by formalizing the concepts of speed and lateral and heading offsets and by assuming slippage-free motion. The main result is that for straight-line or circular-are paths to be tracked with a constant velocity, path-tracking may be ensured by means of a linear, time-invariant, and decoupled controller, the gains of which may be determined using familiar proportional-integral-derivative (PID) and state-feedback techniques.