This paper concerns the modeling and control of a mobile manipulator which consists
of a robotic arm mounted upon a mobile platform. The equations of motion are derived using the Lagrange-d'Alembert formulation for the nonholonomic model of the mobile manipulator. The dynamic model which considers slip of the platform's tires is developed using the Newton-Euler method and incorporates Dugoff's tire friction model. Then, the tracking problem is investigated by using a well known nonlinear control method for the nonholonomic model. The adverse effect of the wheel slip on the tracking of commanded motion is discussed in the simulation. For the dynamic model, a variable structure control approach is employed to minimize the harmful effect of the wheel slip on the tracking performance. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.
