Pitching Motion Control of a Wheeled Mobile Robot with Variable-Pitch Blades via Backstepping Method

Abstract

This paper presents a control strategy for a wheeled mobile robot with variable-pitch blades which make it highly mobile over irregular terrain. In our previous work, a mathematical model with respect to pitching motion of the robot necessary to climb a stair was developed, and a servo controller for the pitching motion was proposed under the assumption that the desired lift or down force was available as a control input. In this paper, taking the actuator dynamics into account, the controller is redesigned by applying the backstepping method to guarantee the asymptotic stability constructing a Lyapunov function, and its effectiveness is shown by numerical simulation.