Regulation of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots using Model Predictive Control:Set Point Stabilization, Path Following, and Distributed Control

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In the context of autonomous mobile robots, the application of nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) has been proposed for different control tasks such as set-point stabilization, trajectory tracking, and path following. For these application areas the question of sufficient stability conditions can be answered with the help of additional terminal constraints and / or costs. Since these additional (artificial) ingredients are restrictive as soon as obstacles or several mobile robots are taken into account, avoiding these stability enforcing constraints is of practical interest. Within the scientific network our goal is to develop rigorous stability guarantees that require neither terminal regions nor terminal constraints. Herein, we follow a three stage program: First, we focus on set point stabilization for continuous time formulations as well as for the respective sampled-data implementations. Secondly, based on the obtained results, we consider path following tasks in order to enable the mobile robots to circumvent static obstacles. And last, we investigate a setting with several mobile robots. Flanking this theoretical part, we plan to implement and test the proposed MPC schemes as well as measure their performance utilizing both simulations and prototypes. The proposed project shall establish a collaboration platform for early stage researchers working on different aspects of MPC, which will allow for identifying and fostering future joint research projects.