Modeling and dynamic control of compliant framed wheeled modular mobile robots

Dynamic models and controllers for compliant framed wheeled modular mobile robots are studied in this paper. This is a new type of wheeled mobile robot using axle and frame modules that can provide both full suspension and enhanced steering capability without additional hardware. In this research modular kinematic and dynamic models of the modules are developed and assembled into a scalable dynamic system model such that a wide variety of configurations could be described. Dynamic control is then achieved by coordinated control of the individual wheel torques as specified by a backstepping controller scaled to the dimension of the system configuration. These results are applied to a two-axle scout case study in order to demonstrate their implementation and performance. Simulation and experimental results illustrate dynamic control of trajectory tracking while path following.