Implementation and validation of a docking system for nonholonomical vehicles

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental validation of a docking system for a differential drive robot. The docking problem is solved with a smooth, time-invariant, globally asymptotically stable feedback control law which allows for a very human-like closed-loop steering that drives the robot to a certain goal with a desired attitude and a tunable curvature. Simulations of the docking problem are presented that illustrate the performance of the system and it is also validated by performing tests on the aforementioned real robot. © 2015 Springer International Publishing.