Tracking control of a mobile robot with kinematic and dynamic constraints

A path tracking control method with both kinematic and dynamic constraints is proposed for a nonholonomic mobile robot. By incorporating a biologically inspired shunting model into the conventional bang-bang control technique, the proposed tracking controller is capable of generating real-time acceleration commands that can produce smooth, continuous robot velocities, and drive the mobile robot to track the desired trajectories. In the controller design, the accelerations are bounded and the nonholonomic kinematic constraints are satisfied. The stability of the control system and the convergence of tracking errors to zero are proved using a Lyapunov stability theory. The effectiveness of the proposed tracking controller is demonstrated by simulation studies.