Robust adaptive motion/force control of uncertain nonholonomic mechanical systems

The position/force tracking control of Lagrangian mechanical systems with classical nonholonomic constraints is addressed. The main feature of the paper is that: 1) the control strategy is developed at the dynamic level and can deal with model uncertainties in the mechanical systems; 2) the proposed control law ensures the desired trajectory tracking of the configuration state of the closed-loop system; 3) the tracking error of the constraint force is uniformly ultimately bounded with a controllable bound; and 4) a global asymptotic stability result is obtained in the Lyapunov sense. A detailed numerical example is presented to illustrate the developed method.