Prototyping and Control Experiments of a Cartesian Nonholonomic Robot.

Abstract

In a previous paper, the present authors proposed to constructing a Cartesian nonholonomic robot using two balls and two actuators. In order to find whether the robot would be physically realizable and whether good control results could be expected, a prototype is constructed and control experiments are conducted. A new sensor which can detect the position and orientation of the robot is also developed, using two mouses used in computers. Both simulations and control experiments are performed, yielding very similar and acceptable control results, showing the correctness of the kinematic model, the efficacy of the control algorithms, and the physical realizability of the proposed nonholonomic robots.