ABSTRACT
Within the motion control and sensing architecture, a kinematic controller provides velocity commands that act as reference inputs for a dynamic controller responsible for rejecting disturbances and tracking the kinematic reference trajectory. This chapter discusses how to design the corresponding kinematic motion-control algorithms considering the physical constraints of compliantly coupled multi-robot systems such as the compliant, framed, wheeled, modular mobile robot (CFMMR). It presents a single smooth time-invariant control law capable of all motion-control tasks while considering physical constrain. The path manifold–based controller is thus presented to simultaneously solve the primary motion-control problems for unicycle-type wheeled mobile robots subject to physical constraints. The chapter also presents distributed master-slave control structure for the multi-axle CFMMR train to provide simplicity and uniform extendibility to the controller. In the control structure, the first axle of the robot guides motion of the robot as a global master.
