Optimal control of 2-wheeled mobile robot at energy performance index

•Description of nonlinear dynamics of the 2-wheeled mobile robot with the use of the Appell–Gibbs equations.•Control law is derived for the desired motion trajectory with assumption that the system is bounded with non-holonomic constraints.•Minimising the errors of the platform velocities and position errors.•Simulations and experimental results included.•Significant improvement of the motion control in comparison to the reference PID based control method.

The paper presents the application of the optimal control method at the energy performance index towards motion control of the 2-wheeled mobile robot. With the use of the proposed method of control the 2-wheeled mobile robot can realise effectively the desired trajectory. The problem of motion control of mobile robots is usually neglected and thus performance of the realisation of the high level control tasks is limited.