Visual Trajectory Tracking Control of Non-Holonomic Mobile Robots: A Cascaded Approach

In this paper, a visual-based trajectory tracking controller of non-holonomic mobile robots is designed using a nonlinear cascaded approach. Firstly, the visual trajectory tracking model is established for a mobile robot system with a fixed camera. The tracking error dynamics is derived, and the whole system is divided into two cascaded subsystems, namely the longitudinal tracking subsystem and the lateral tracking subsystem. Then globally asymptotically stable controllers are designed using the backstepping method for them, and the stability of the system is proved using the cascaded system theory. Simulation results show that the proposed visual-based cascaded control method achieves the trajectory tracking. The trajectory tracking experiment with a mobile robot is also performed to verify the feasibility of the proposed cascaded approach.