Comparative study and experimental implementation of different path tracking controllers in mobile robots

This paper presents a comparative study and the experimental implementation of different path tracking control laws for the formation of a group of nonholonomic mobile robots. By introducing a unified error of the formation and trajectory tracking using: the dynamic feedback linearization control [1], dynamic-static feedback linearization control [2], and nonlinear time-invariant control [3] are compared. The simulations results show that the dynamic-static feedback linearization technique presents a stable tracking with smoother behaviour and avoiding discontinuities for tracking trajectory of the robot leader. Finally, this method was implemented experimentally in three different paths, forming a simple triangle with three mobile robots in a leader-follower type motion. Moreover, the analysis in this paper reveals some important issues raising that the controllers developed on this system can be extended to underactuated UAVs in future work.