Study of the internal dynamics of an autonomous mobile robot

The requirement of ideal rolling without sideways slipping for wheels imposes nonholonomic (non-integrable) constraints on the motion of the wheels and consequently on the motion of wheeled mobile robots. From the control point of view, the dynamics of nonholonomic systems can be divided in two parts: external and internal dynamics. The dimension of the external dynamics of nonholonomic systems depends on the number of inputs to the system and the dimension of the internal dynamics depends on the number of independent nonholonomic constraints. For different motion control problems of nonholonomic systems, a smooth (model based) state feedback control law only deals with the system external dynamics; therefore, the system internal dynamics must be examined separately and its stability has to be analyzed and proved. In this paper, the internal dynamics of a three-wheel mobile robot with front wheel steering and driving is investigated. In particular, its internal dynamics stability is analyzed for two different situations, when the mobile robot is moving and when it is stationary. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.