Underactuated control for a fire truck-type mobile robot using an invariant manifold theory

Underactuated control for a fire truck-type mobile robot is considered using an invariant manifold theory. A kinematic model with three inputs and six outputs is first transformed into a chained form, and then invariant manifolds are derived by applying the solution form of such a chained form. The present control strategy is based on a two-step approach: i.e., the first step is to make invariant manifolds, and the second step is to stabilize all the states on the manifolds. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by a simulation.