Synchronized closed path following for a differential drive and manipulator robot

Abstract

We locally solve a synchronized path-following problem for a heterogeneous multiagent system consisting of a differential drive robot and a serial manipulator. Each is assigned a simple, regular, and closed curve in its output space. The outputs of the systems must approach and traverse their assigned curves while synchronizing their motions along the paths. We use the notion of path-following outputs to facilitate a solution and present a novel synchronization controller and a novel singularity avoidance controller. The controllers are all given in closed form making their implementation straightforward. A numerical simulation is presented, which includes modeling uncertainty to demonstrate the utility of this approach.