Asymptotic Stabilization of Non-holonomic Port-controlled Hamiltonian Systems

A novel method for asymptotic stabilization of a class of non-holonomic systems is presented. The method is based on the port-controlled Hamiltonian description of electro-mechanical systems. The general system is augmented with so-called kinematic inputs, thus representing a special class of mobile robots. The asymptotic stability guarantees are obtained by applying a passivity based control design, based on energy shaping and damping injection. The method has been successfully applied to a particular four wheel steered, four wheel driven robot.