Kinematic correction of a differential drive mobile robot and a design for velocity trajectory with acceleration constraints on motor controllers

Abstract

Presents a method for reducing odometry errors caused by kinematic imperfections in wheeled mobile robots. A new velocity trajectory is proposed that compensates for orientation error due to acceleration constraints on motor controllers. According to this velocity trajectory, the wheel velocity of one out of two driven wheels may be changed by the traveled distance of the mobile robot. It is shown that a wheeled mobile robot can't move along a straight line exactly, even if kinematic imperfections are corrected perfectly, and this phenomenon is attributable to acceleration constraints on motor controllers. We experiment on a wheeled mobile robot with 2 DOF and discuss the results.