ABSTRACT
A number of typical mobile robots can be described by the chained form or more general nonholonomic systems. Due to Brockett’s theorem, it is well known that nonholonomic systems with restricted mobility cannot be stabilized to a desired configuration via differentiable, or even continuous, pure-state feedback. It is noted that one commonly used approach for control system design of nonholonomic systems is to convert, with appropriate state and input transformations, the original systems into some canonical forms for which controller design can be carried out more easily. The stabilization problem is considered for general nonholonomic mobile robots at the actuator level, taking into account the uncertainties in dynamics and the actuators. The existence and construction of the transformation for these systems have been established in the literature. The chapter investigates stabilization of uncertain nonholonomic mobile robotic systems with unknown constant inertia parameters and actuator dynamics.
