Traction control of wheeled vehicles using dynamic feedback approach

A dynamic traction control scheme for mobile robots/vehicles with two steerable and drivable wheels is presented. The kinematic modeling and position/orientation control of such a mobile robot/vehicle was studied previously by the authors (1996). In this paper, a dynamic feedback control algorithm is developed based on the dynamics of the vehicle, which not only enables the vehicle to move from any initial configuration (position and orientation) to any final configuration, but also strives to optimally distribute the tractive efforts between the two wheels for better performance. It is also shown that the same cannot be achieved by any static feedback controller. Such a control algorithm will be useful where surface conditions vary, and tractive torques between the wheels need to be dynamically allocated to maintain the required dynamic performance