Transposed Jacobian Control of a Mobile Robot

Abstract

This paper describes a method of controlling the position of a differential drive mobile robot. Specifically, the paper addresses the problem of driving some point that is fixed with respect to the robot to a desired location in the work-space. Borrowing from manipulator control theory, a transposed Jacobian control technique is formulated to solve this problem. The transposed Jacobian technique results in generalized control forces rather than actuator voltages, so a transformation is devised based upon the computed-torque technique to obtain the equivalent actuator voltages given these control forces. Additionally, a tuning method for the control that is based upon dominant pole theory is devised. Simulations are the presented that show the capabilities of the controller and the tuning method.