Dynamic Modelling, Tracking Control and Simulation Results of a Novel Underactuated Wheeled Manipulator (WAcrobot)

Abstract

In this chapter the WAcrobot, a novel underactuated manipulator which is the combination of a well-known double inverted pendulum (Acrobot) and a wheeled inverted pendulum, was proposed and the tracking control algorithm of this mobile manipulator was investigated. The balancing controller is designed using the well known Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) method and the tracking controller was designed on the basis of the Gain Scheduling control strategy. Three different types of trajectory tracking tasks were investigated including tracking of a) wheels, b) first or second arm and c) wheels and first or second arm simultaneously. This chapter also provided numerical and graphical simulation results to validate the obtained theoretical results and to demonstrate the correlation between the numerical results and the WAcrobot physical response. Simulation results illustrated good performance results for different tracking controls designed based on the Gain Scheduling method. Research into the control of this novel robotic system is just in the beginning and there are a number of research problems that remain to be addressed. It would be desirable to develop the theory of robust and adaptive controller for swing-up control problem of the WAcrobot.