Trajectory Generation and Tracking Control for Double-Steering Tractor–Trailer Mobile Robots With On-Axle Hitching

A multisteering tractor-trailer mobile robot (MSTTMR) is a kind of complex multibody system, which consists of a tractor and a chain of steerable trailers. If both the tractor and the trailers can track an identical geometric path, the overall width of the system is only equal to that of the tractor or the trailer. Thus, the robot can perform transport tasks in a narrow space. The MSTTMR with one trailer is referred to as the double-steering tractor-trailer mobile robot (DSTTMR), since the system has two steering inputs. In this paper, trajectory generation and tracking control for the DSTTMR with on-axle hitching are addressed. We first propose an approach to generate the desired full-state trajectory from a desired geometric path given in the Cartesian plane, in order that the desired state trajectories of the tractor and trailer can form the same desired path. Then, a trajectory tracking controller is designed based on the backstepping technique to drive the system's states to converge to their desired trajectories. As a result, the tractor and the trailer can track the desired geometric path simultaneously. Simulation and experimental results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

[1]  Ryan N. Smith,et al.  A nonlinear PI and backstepping-based controller for tractor-steerable trailers influenced by slip , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[2]  Simon X. Yang,et al.  A Bioinspired Filtered Backstepping Tracking Control of 7000-m Manned Submarine Vehicle , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[3]  E. Aranda-Bricaire,et al.  GLOBAL PATH-TRACKING FOR A MULTI-STEERED GENERAL N-TRAILER , 2002 .

[4]  Huang Ya.  Stabilization of Multi-steering Tractor-trailer Mobile Robot , 2011 .

[5]  Krzysztof Kozlowski,et al.  Tracking and set-point VFO control for an articulated mobile robot with on-axle hitched trailer , 2009, 2009 American Control Conference.

[6]  Mark A. Minor,et al.  A simple tractor-trailer backing control law for path following with side-slope compensation , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[7]  Young Hoon Joo,et al.  Guaranteed cost sampled‐data fuzzy control for non‐linear systems: a continuous‐time Lyapunov approach , 2013 .

[8]  John T. Wen,et al.  Trajectory tracking control of a car-trailer system , 1997, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[9]  Zongxia Jiao,et al.  Extended-State-Observer-Based Output Feedback Nonlinear Robust Control of Hydraulic Systems With Backstepping , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[10]  Kazuo Tanaka,et al.  Sensor Reduction for Backing-Up Control of a Vehicle With Triple Trailers , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[11]  A. Sahai,et al.  Off-tracking bounds for a car pulling trailers with kingpin hitching , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 33rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[12]  Erdal Kayacan,et al.  Learning in Centralized Nonlinear Model Predictive Control: Application to an Autonomous Tractor-Trailer System , 2021, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[13]  S. Sastry,et al.  Trajectory generation for the N-trailer problem using Goursat normal form , 1993, Proceedings of 32nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[14]  S. Shankar Sastry,et al.  A Multi-Steering Trailer System: Conversion into Chained Form Using , 1994 .

[15]  Jing Yuan,et al.  Stabilization of Multi-steering Tractor-trailer Mobile Robot: Stabilization of Multi-steering Tractor-trailer Mobile Robot , 2011 .

[16]  J.-T. Huang,et al.  Adaptive tracking control of high-order non-holonomic mobile robot systems , 2009 .

[17]  S. Sastry,et al.  Nonholonomic motion planning: steering using sinusoids , 1993, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control..

[18]  Claudio Altafini,et al.  Path following with reduced off-tracking for the n-trailer system , 1998, Proceedings of the 37th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.98CH36171).

[19]  Jorge L. Martínez,et al.  Steering the Last Trailer as a Virtual Tractor for Reversing Vehicles With Passive On- and Off-Axle Hitches , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[20]  Claudio Altafini,et al.  Path following with reduced off-tracking for multibody wheeled vehicles , 2003, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[21]  Paolo Bolzern,et al.  Path-tracking for articulated vehicles with off-axle hitching , 1998, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[22]  Dariusz Pazderski,et al.  Control of a unicycle-like robot with three on-axle trailers using transverse function approach , 2012, 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[23]  S. Ali A. Moosavian,et al.  Robust Adaptive Controller for a Tractor–Trailer Mobile Robot , 2014, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

[24]  Toshiyuki Murakami,et al.  Nonholonomic Equivalent Disturbance Based Backward Motion Control of Tractor-Trailer With Virtual Steering , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.