Slip control of a wheeled mobile robot with a movable auxiliary mass

This paper presents a slip control strategy for a wheeled mobile robot which consists of two modules: a normal wheeled vehicle, and a moveable auxiliary mass which is a feature of this mobile robot. Longitudinal motion of the auxiliary mass can be controlled by a DC motor to improve the vehicle mobility. That is, the auxiliary mass is utilized to change the center of gravity and the moment of inertia etc., corresponding to the environment. First, a linearized model is obtained by stochastic approximation method. Then an output feedback sliding mode controller is designed for slip control. The effectiveness of the proposed simple controller is demonstrated through numerical simulation.