Steering control of nonholonomic systems with drift: the extended nonholonomic double integrator example (Q2572193)

The paper deals with stabilization of the extended Brocket integrator. This is a dynamical model for the motion of a unicycle-type wheeled robot. From the control theoretic point of view, it is an analytic control-affine system. It is well known that, in general, such systems are not stabilizable by static continuous feedback but can be stabilized by discontinuous or time-variant feedbacks. The author discusses two approaches to the construction of stabilizing feedbacks for the extended Brocket integrator. The first approach is based in the construction of two cost functions. These are basically the squared norms of the projection of the state vector into the subspace spanned by the controlled vector fields at the origin and the subspace generated by Lie brackets of the controlled fields and the drift also at the origin, respectively. A desired direction of motion is determined by the values of these functions, setting the switchings of a piecewise constant control which globally stabilizes the system. In the second approach, a stabilizing feedback for the Lie-extension of the original system is obtained. Then, a time-variant feedback for the original system is designed such that the corresponding trajectory intersects the trajectory of the stabilized Lie extension at a prescribed period. It is shown that the resulting control is locally asymptotically stabilizing. Results of numerical simulations of the proposed controls are shown.