Robust adaptive motion/force tracking control of uncertain nonholonomic mechanical systems

The position/force tracking control of Lagrangian mechanical systems with classical nonholonomic constraints is addressed in this paper. The main feature of this paper is that 1) control strategy is developed at the dynamic level and can deal with model uncertainties in the mechanical systems; 2) the proposed control law ensures the desired trajectory tracking of the configuration state of the closed-loop system; 3) the tracking error of constraint force is bounded with a controllable bound; and 4) a global asymptotic stability result is obtained in the Lyapunov sense. A detailed numerical example is presented to illustrate the developed method.