Stabilizing a Class of Switched Nonholonomic Mechanical Systems

Abstract: Structurally reconfigurable or variant robot systems can provide better mobility and environmental adaptability. In this paper it is shown that a class of nonholonomic constraints robot systems can be changed to a class of special linear time varying (LTV) systems, and by applying switching control strategy the control singular problems of nonholonomic systems caused by the local coordinates can be overcome, and provides a flexible approach of optimal motion planning for mobile robotic systems. For variant robot systems with switched discontinuous dynamics, it is shown that the switching control approaches can be used to stabilize a class of switched heterogeneous nonholonomic systems. Some numerical simulation results also demonstrate the effectiveness of the control strategy proposed in this paper.