Yu Gao
The Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, vol. 22, no. 12, pp.2403-2416, 2008

Abstract : In this paper, a receding horizon (RH) controller is developed for tracking control of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) subject to nonholonomic constraint in the environments without obstacles. The problem is simplified by neglecting the vehicle dynamics and considering only the steering system. First, the tracking-error kinematic model is linearized at the equilibrium point. And then, it is transferred to an exact discrete form considering the time-delay. The control policy is derived from the optimization of a quadratic cost function, which penalizes the tracking error and control variables in each sampling time. The minimizing problem is solved by using the QP (quadratic programming) method taking the current error state as the initial value and including the velocity constraints. The performance of the control algorithm is verified via the computer simulations with several different predefined trajectories showing that the strategy is feasible.

Keyword : Receding horizon control; Trajectory tracking; Wheeled mobile robot; Quadratic programming