Tracking Control of a Two-Wheeled Mobile Robot Based on Endogenous Linearization of the Dynamic Model

This paper presents a novel trajectory tracking control method based on differential flatness for a differentially driven wheeled mobile robot (DDWMR). The proposed approach utilizes dynamic feedback linearization of the robot’s nonlinear dynamic model via an endogenous transformation that maps the original flat system to an equivalent trivial linear control system. A simple tracking control scheme is designed for the linearized model, and its disturbance rejection capability is analyzed. It is hypothesized that the proposed method can be extended to a special class of flat systems, including torque-controlled manipulators, where the flat output is solely a function of the system’s state vector.