PATH FOLLOWING CONTROL FOR A MOBILE ROBOT PUSHING A BALL

This paper focuses on the control problem of a mobile robot pushing a ball. In order to drive a rolling ball along a given path, the robot should provide the ball with appropriate force by consecutive pushing operations. A new control algorithm combining a linear feedback control with a normal proportional feedback control is proposed, which steers a reference point to follow the given path and the ball to move around this point simultaneously. In the end, the simulation and real-world experiments address the performance and robustness of this control algorithm.