J Control Theory Appl 2010 8 (2) 139–144
DOI 10.1007/s11768-010-0003-1
Dynamic feedback robust stabilization of
nonholonomic mobile robots based on
visual servoing
Chaoli WANG
1
, Zhenying LIANG
2,3
, Qingwei JIA
4
(1.Department of Control Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China;
2.Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China;
3.School of Science, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo Shandong 255049, China;
4.Research & Development Centre, Hitachi Asia Ltd, Hitachi Tower, Singapore 049318)
Abstract: This paper investigates the visual servoing robust stabilization of nonholonomic mobile robots. The calibra-
tion of visual parameters is not only complicated, but also needs great consumption of calculated time so that the accurate
calibration is impossible in some situations for high requirement of real timing. Hence, it is interesting and important to
consider the design of stabilizing controllers for nonholonomic kinematic systems with uncalibrated visual parameters. A
novel uncertain model of these nonholonomic kinematic systems is proposed. Based on this model, a stabilizing controller
is discussed by using dynamic feedback and two-step techniques. The proposed robust controller makes the mobile robot
image pose and the orientation converge to the desired configuration despite the lack of depth information and the lack of
precise visual parameters. The stability of the closed loop system is rigorously proved. The simulation is given to show the
effectiveness of the presented controllers.
Keywords: Nonholonomic system; Uncalibrated visual parameters; Stabilization; Dynamic feedback
1 Introduction
A mobile robot is one of the well-known systems with
nonholonomic constraints [1, 2]. By the theorem of R.
Brockett [3], a nonholonomic system cannot be stabilized
at a single equilibrium point by a smooth static state feed-
back controller. To solve this problem, lots of methods have
been considered, such as chained form methods [4,5], track-
ing control [6], and discontinuous feedback control [7]. In
the control of nonholonomic mobile robots, it is usually as-
sumed that the robot states are available and exactly recon-
structed using proprioceptive and exteroceptive sensor mea-
surements. However, in practical mobile robot applications,
there are several ideal conditions that can not be satisfied,
such as uncertainties in the kinematic model, mechanical
limitations, noise, and so on. The estimation of the robot
states from sensor measurements can be affected by these
perturbations.
Visual feedback is an important method to improve the
control performance of manipulators since it mimics the hu-
man sense of vision and allows for operating on the basis of
noncontact measurement of the environment. Since the late
1980s, tremendous effort has been made to study visual ser-
voing and vision-based manipulations [8].
The nonholonomic control problem becomes more in-
volved because of the visual feedback. Designing the feed-
back at the sensor level enhances system performance espe-
cially when uncertainties and disturbances affect the robot
model and the camera calibration, see [9] and references
therein.
The contribution of this paper is that a novel uncertain
kniematic model of nonholonomic mobile robots is pro-
posed by using visual feedback with uncalibrated visual pa-
rameters. The model is different from the uncertain mod-
els available. Based on this model, two-step control tech-
niques and dynamic feedback are exploited to craft a robust
controller that makes the mobile robot image pose and the
orientation be stabilized despite the lack of depth informa-
tion and precise visual parameters, provided that the camera
plane and the mobile robot plane must be parallel.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces
the camera-object visual model in terms of the planar opti-
cal flow equations. In Section 3, the controllers are synthe-
sized for a case. In Section 4, the simulation results carried
out to validate the theoretical framework. Finally, in Section
5, the major contribution of the paper is summarized.
2 Problem statement
2.1 System configuration
In Fig.1, a mobile robot is shown in the X-Y plane. As-
sume that a pinhole camera is fixed to the ceiling and the
camera plane and the mobile robot plane are parallel. There
are three coordinate frames, namely, the inertial frame X-
Y -Z, the camera frame X
1
-Y
1
-Z
1
, and the image frame u-
O
1
-v. Assume that the X
1
-Y
1
plane of the camera frame is
Received 13 January 2010.
This work was partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.60874002), the Key Program of Scientific Innovation of
Shanghai Education Committee (No.09zz158), and the Shanghai Key Discipline (No.S30501).
c
South China University of Technology and Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, CAS and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010