Trajectory tracking control of Skid-Steering Robot – experimental validation ⋆

In this paper authors consider the problem of practical stabilization of wheeled mobile robot equipped with skid-steering drive (also know as SSMR). The kinematic model of SSMR is approximated by kinematics of unicycle including small perturbation term which describes limited skidding effect. It is justified that SSMR can be regarded as a system with non-stationary first order nonholonomic constraint. Based on this result smooth control scheme robust to limited skidding is developed. The control law ensures practical stabilization in regulation and trajectory tracking case, i.e. position and orientation errors are bounded to the assumed but nonzero values. The effectiveness of control solution is justified and illustrated by experimental results.