Adaptive tracking control of wheeled mobile robots with unknown longitudinal and lateral slipping parameters

An adaptive control approach is proposed for trajectory tracking of wheeled mobile robot (WMR) with unknown longitudinal and lateral slipping. A kinematic model of tracked WMR is established in this paper, in which both longitudinal and lateral slipping are considered and processed as three time-varying parameters. Sliding mode observer is then introduced to real time estimate the slip parameters online. A stable tracking control law for this robot system is proposed by backstepping method, and the asymptotic stability is guaranteed by Lyapunov theory. Meanwhile, the controller gains are determined online by poles placement method. Simulation results show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.