Ieee-rsj Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems Iros'00 Takamatsu, the Cycab Robot : a Diierentially Flat System

The Cycab robot is a new mobile platform already used in several research labs and meant to diierent applications such as public transportation in airport terminals , self-service cars in pedestrian zones, etc. From a kinematic point of view, the Cycab speciity is the turning of its rear wheels as a linear function of the steering angle of the front wheels. This feature enhances the maneuverability of the Cycab in cluttered environments. However, the associated kinematic model is new and diierent from the ones commonly treated in the robotics litera-ture(such as the car-like, tractor-trailer, etc). To our knowledge such a system has not yet been studied and especially, there is no existing motion planner for this system. In this paper, we tackle the study of this new nonholonomic system, by establishing its kinematic model and proving its diierential atness property. From this study we deduce a rst motion planner for the system. Abstract The Cycab robot is a new mobile platform already used in several research labs and meant to diierent applications such as public transportation in airport terminals, self-service cars in pedestrian zones, etc. From a kinematic point of view, the Cycab speciity is the turning of its rear wheels as a linear function of the steering angle of the front wheels. This feature enhances the maneuverability of the Cycab in cluttered environments. However, the associated kinematic model is new and diierent from the ones commonly treated in the robotics literature(such as the car-like, tractor-trailer, etc). To our knowledge such a system has not yet been studied and especially, there is no existing motion planner for this system. In this paper, we tackle the study of this new nonholonomic system, by establishing its kinematic model and proving its differential atness property. From this study we deduce a rst motion planner for the system.