Implementation of a Hybrid Stabilizing Controller on a Mobile Robot with Two Degrees of Freedom

One of the results of a research project on mechatronics is a mobile robot, which was used as a carrier for research on the design of mechatronical systems. This mobile robot, the Mobile Autonomous Robot Twente (MART), is intended to be used as major part of a future assembly factory. In this paper the implementation on the MART-robot of a recently developed hybrid controller for stabilization of non-holonomic systems is described. Limitations of the physical model of the mechanical structure of the MARTrobot lead to a number of practical problems. An interesting result given in the paper is the insight obtained into the geometrical meaning of different parameters of the controller, which allowed considerable improvements in the performance of the controller on the actual mobile robot.