Trajectory planning and tracking control for autonomous bicycle robot

Control of the autonomous bicycle robot offers considerable challenges to the field of robotics due to its nonholonomic, underactuated, and nonminimum-phase properties. Furthermore, instability and complex dynamic coupling make the trajectory planning of the bicycle robot even more challenging. In this paper, we consider both trajectory planning and tracking control of the autonomous bicycle robot. The desired motion trajectory of the contact point of the bicycle's rear wheel is constructed using the parameterized polynomial curve that can connect two given endpoints with associated tangent angles. The parameters of the polynomial curve are determined by minimizing the maximum of the desired roll angle's equilibrium of the bicycle, and this optimization problem is solved by the particle swarm optimization algorithm. Then, a control scheme that can achieve full-state trajectory tracking while maintaining the bicycle's balance is proposed by combining a planar trajectory tracking controller with a roll angle balance controller. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.