PID-based target tracking control of a tractor-trailer mobile robot

The tractor-trailer wheeled robot is an articulated nonholonomic vehicle. This paper presents a novel PID-based tracking control law for the tractor-trailer wheeled robot. Theoretical anticipations do not always match the behavior of real systems. This is as a result of the existence of various uncertainties and disturbances. Consequently, controllers that are less dependent on systems' theoretical models are more desirable that is aimed at this research. Therefore, a PID-based kinematic controller is proposed as a non-model based controller to navigate the tractor-trailer wheeled robot follows desired trajectories. Subsequently, a computed torque dynamic controller is investigated to produce kinetic control inputs. The proposed method is implemented on a real-time experimental testbed and obtained results are discussed. These results present the merits of the proposed algorithm.