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A Novel Robust Leader-Following Control Design for Mobile Robots

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Abstract

To extend the utility of multiple mobile robots (MMRs) in formation on a larger scale, the algorithms developed for control of such robots must be robust. The majority of the developed controllers in the literature lack incorporating dynamics of the MMRs or lack robustness in their design. The very few recently developed robust controllers that consider dynamics, either rely on conservative assumptions to obtain robustness, or are sliding-mode based which suffer from the chattering problem. In this paper, (1) we consider both kinematics and dynamics as well as the actuator dynamics and their uncertainties in formulating the formation of non-holonomic MMRs, (2) we develop a novel robust control technique that can effectively handle the unknown parameters and uncertainties in the system, (3) unlike other papers, we relax the conservative assumptions to arrive at control design, and present rigorous mathematical analyses for the development of robust control and prove the system stability based on the Lyapunov theorem. Simulation results proved the effectiveness of the developed robust control method. It was concluded that the proposed control method, while not being conservative, is easy to use and can be readily adopted in real-time experiments.

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  1. School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

    Mohammad Biglarbegian

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  1. Mohammad Biglarbegian
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Correspondence to Mohammad Biglarbegian.

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Biglarbegian, M. A Novel Robust Leader-Following Control Design for Mobile Robots. J Intell Robot Syst 71, 391–402 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-012-9795-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-012-9795-1

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