Abstract
This paper proposes a path tracking strategy for wheeled mobile robots of type \(\{1, 2\}\) (i.e. equipped with two steering axles), with the aim to ensure the convergence of the front and rear control points along a same trajectory, leading to reduce the required space to achieve maneuvers. The proposed approach considers front and rear steering axles as two separate systems with their own control variables: the front and the rear steering angles. The problem of managing two steering axles is solved without considering an explicit control of the robot’s orientation, nor a relationship between the two steering angles which is generally a not optimal approach. The proposed control laws are based on adaptive and predictive control techniques in order to address phenomena acting when moving in unstructured context, such as bad grip conditions, low-level and inertial delays. As a result, this control algorithm enables to accurately control bi-steerable mobile robots, while increasing their maneuverability. This is particularly suitable for off-road applications, such as in agriculture where potentially large robots have to move in cluttered environments and face low grip conditions.
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Acknowledgment
This work has been sponsored by the French government research program “Investissements d’Avenir” through the IMobS3 Laboratory of Excellence (ANR-10-LABX-16-01), by the European Union through the pro- gram “Regional competitiveness and employment 2007–2013” (ERDF Auvergne region), and by the Auvergne region.
It received the support of French National Research Agency under the grant number ANR-14-CE27-0004 attributed to Adap2E project (adap2e.irstea.fr) and has also been sponsored through the RobotEx Equipment of Excellence (ANR-10-EQPX-44). We thank them for their financial support.
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Notes and Comments. This paper constitutes an extension of the original control algorithms proposed in [8], where the robot model was expressed with respect to time, so that control performances were dependent on the robot velocity. In this paper, models are expressed with respect to the curvilinear abscissa covered by the robot, so that control performances are henceforth described as settling distances and are independent from robot velocity. Furthermore, this paper proposes an anticipation layer to improve the robustness of the path tracking with respect to actuator delays and the rear steering law has been modified to avoid lock-up situations occurring when a saturation is present at the front steering angle. Experiments have also been enhanced to highlight the generality of the approach with respect to the robot configuration and the diversity of the situations encountered in targeted applications.
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Lenain, R., Nizard, A., Deremetz, M., Thuilot, B., Papot, V., Cariou, C. (2020). Controlling Off-Road Bi-steerable Mobile Robots: An Adaptive Multi-control Laws Strategy. In: Gusikhin, O., Madani, K. (eds) Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics. ICINCO 2018. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 613. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31993-9_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31993-9_17
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