Trajectory tracking control of the second-order chained form system by using state transitions

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel control approach composed of sinusoidal reference trajectories and trajectory tracking controller for the second-order chained form system. The system is well-known as a canonical form for a class of second-order nonholonomic systems obtained by appropriate transformation of the generalized coordinates and control inputs. The system is decomposed into three subsystems, two of them are the so-called double integrators and the other subsystem is a nonlinear system depending on one of the double integrators. The double integrators are linearly controllable, which enables to transit the value of the position state in order to modify the nature of the nonlinear system that depends on them. Transiting the value to "one" corresponds to modifying the nonlinear subsystem into the double integrator; transiting the value to "zero" corresponds to modifying the nonlinear subsystem into an uncontrollable linear autonomous system. Focusing on this nature, this paper proposes a feedforward control strategy. Furthermore, from the perspective of practical usefulness, the control strategy is extended into trajectory tracking control by using proportional-derivative feedback. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through several numerical experiments including an application to an underactuated manipulator.