Implementation of Time-Varying Controllers for a Nonholonomic Mobile Robot: Experimental Studies

TL;DR

This paper experimentally validates time-varying feedback controllers for a nonholonomic mobile robot, demonstrating stabilization of the robot's position with practically acceptable parameters.

Contribution

It implements previously proposed controllers on a real robot and investigates the admissibility of gradient flow for stabilization.

Findings

Successful stabilization of the robot's position using the controllers.

Experimental validation of the controllers' effectiveness.

Analysis of gradient flow admissibility supports controller design.

Abstract

We consider a kinematic model of a wheeled mobile robot controlled by translational and angular velocities. For this class of nonholonomic systems, a family of time-varying feedback controllers was proposed in our previous works using gradient flow approximation techniques. In the present study, these controllers are implemented on a TurtleBot3 Burger (TB3) mobile robot to provide experimental validation of the stabilization problem with oscillating input signals. In addition, the admissibility problem of a gradient flow is investigated to justify the construction of a Lyapunov function candidate. The presented experimental results demonstrate the possibility of stabilizing the reference position of the robot using feedback controls with practically acceptable parameters.