DESIGN AND CONTROL OF A CARTESIAN NONHOLONOMIC ROBOT

In this article, we discuss how to design and control a Cartesian nonh olonomic robot using two balls and two actuators. To verify the realiz ability of such robots, a prototype is constructed. For feedback contr ol of the robot, a new sensor, which can detect the position and orien tation of the robot, is developed using two computer mouses. After der iving the kinematic model of the robot, it is transformed into the cha ined form for which a simple control law is proposed. Both simulations and control experiments yielded very similar and acceptable control r esults, which show the correctness of the kinematic model, the efficac y of the control algorithms, and the physical realizability of the pro posed nonholonomic robot. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.