Design of a Disturbance Rejection Controller for a Class of Nonholonomic Systems with Uncertainties

This study investigates the global output feedback stabilization problem for one type of the nonholonomic system with nonvanishing external disturbances. An extended state observer (ESO) is constructed in order to estimate the external disturbance and unmeasurable system states, in which the external disturbance term is seen as a general state. Thus, a new generalized error dynamic system is obtained. Accordingly, a disturbance rejection controller is designed by making use of the backstepping technique. A control law is given to ensure that all the signals in the closed-loop system are globally bounded, while the system states converge to an equilibrium point. The simulation example is proposed to verify that the control algorithm is effective.

Development of Task-Space Nonholonomic Motion Planning Algorithm Based on Lie-Algebraic Method

In this paper, a Lie-algebraic nonholonomic motion planning technique, originally designed to work in a configuration space, was extended to plan a motion within a task-space resulting from an output function considered. In both planning spaces, a generalized Campbell–Baker–Hausdorff–Dynkin formula was utilized to transform a motion planning into an inverse kinematic task known for serial manipulators. A complete, general-purpose Lie-algebraic algorithm is provided for a local motion planning of nonholonomic systems with or without output functions. Similarities and differences in motion planning within configuration and task spaces were highlighted. It appears that motion planning in a task-space can simplify a planning task and also gives an opportunity to optimize a motion of nonholonomic systems. Unfortunately, in this planning there is no way to avoid working in a configuration space. The auxiliary objective of the paper is to verify, through simulations, an impact of initial parameters on the efficiency of the planning algorithm, and to provide some hints on how to set the parameters correctly.

Radial kinetic nonholonomic trajectories are Riemannian geodesics!

Nonholonomic mechanics describes the motion of systems constrained by nonintegrable constraints. One of its most remarkable properties is that the derivation of the nonholonomic equations is not variational in nature. However, in this paper, we prove (Theorem 1.1) that for kinetic nonholonomic systems, the solutions starting from a fixed point q are true geodesics for a family of Riemannian metrics on the image submanifold $${{\mathcal {M}}}^{nh}_q$$ M q nh of the nonholonomic exponential map. This implies a surprising result: the kinetic nonholonomic trajectories with starting point q, for sufficiently small times, minimize length in $${{\mathcal {M}}}^{nh}_q$$ M q nh !