A nonlinear model predictive control strategy for trajectory tracking of a four‐wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot

This paper presents a nonlinear model‐based predictive controller (NMPC) for trajectory tracking of a four‐wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot. Methods of numerical optimization to perform real‐time nonlinear minimization of the cost function are used. The cost function penalizes the robot's position error, the robot's orientation angle error, and the control effort. Experimental results of the trajectories following and the performances of the methods of optimization are presented. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.