DECENTRALIZED ADAPTIVE-CONTROL OF NONHOLONOMIC MECHANICAL SYSTEMS

This paper considers the problem of controlling the motion of nonholon omic mechanical systems in the presence of incomplete information conc erning the system model and state, and presents a class of decentraliz ed adaptive controllers as a solution to this problem. The proposed co ntrol strategies provide simple and robust solutions to a number of im portant :nonholonomic system control problems, including stabilization to an equilibrium manifold, motion control to an equilibrium point, a nd trajectory tracking control. All of the schemes are computationally efficient, are implementable without system dynamic model or rate inf ormation, and ensure uniform boundedness of all signals and accurate m otion control. Computer simulation results are provided to complement the theoretical developments. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All right s reserved.