Trajectory tracking and time delay management of 4-mecanum wheeled mobile robots (4-MWMR)

Nowadays, wheeled mobile robots have a very important role in industrial applications, namely in transportation tasks thanks to their accuracy and rapidity. However, meeting obstacles while executing a mission can cause an important time delay, which is not appreciable in industry where production must be optimal. This paper deals with the time delay management, the trajectory generation and the tracking problem applied on four wheeled omnidirectional mobile robots. A strategy is proposed to minimize or compensate the time delay caused by obstacles. The approach is done by updating the reference trajectory. This update helps to track the trajectory in real time, a new control law based on the feedback linearization control theory is synthesized to track perfectly generated or updated trajectories.