Abstract
Trajectory tracking of a mobile manipulator in the Cartesian space based on decentralized control is considered in this paper. The dynamic model is first rearranged to take the form of two interconnected subsystems with constraint flow, namely, a nonholonomic mobile platform subsystem and a holonomic manipulator subsystem. Secondly, using the inverse kinematics, the workspace desired trajectory of the mobile manipulator is transformed to the manipulator joint space as well as the platform desired trajectory. The kinematic control is developed from the desired trajectory of the platform. Then, the desired velocity is derived using the kinematic controller of the mobile platform, after which the velocity is used to obtain the control law of the mobile platform subsystem. Thirdly, the control law of the manipulator subsystem is developed based on the desired and real values of the manipulator, as well as the desired velocity. According to the Lyapunov stability theory, the proposed decentralized control strategy guarantees the global stability of the closed-loop system, and the tracking errors are bounded. Experimental results obtained on a 3-DOF manipulator mounted on a mobile platform are given to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach. This is confirmed by a comparison with the computed torque approach.