A Simple Path Following Algorithm for 4W Skid- Steering Mobile Robots

Path following is a key problem for a skid-steering mobile robot (SSMR). With the help of the Lyapunov stability theory, we have designed a stable straight-line path following control law to produce the commanded rotation speed to guide the SSMR. We considered the steering dynamic characteristics, which is assumed to be a first-order model. With the help of the backstepping technique, a stable steering control law has been generated. The straight-line path following method has been verified on a real SSMR. The experimental results of following four different straight lines show that that the proposed method has better performance than the guidance law without considering the steering dynamics.