• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.1831-1839
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• 2003

This paper deals with design and control of passive multiple trailer systems fer practical applications. Due to cost and complexity of trailer mechanism, passive systems are preferred to active systems in this research. The control objective is to minimize trajectory tracking errors of passive multiple trailers. Three types of passive trailer systems-direct-hooked, three-point, and off-hooked- are discussed in this paper. Trajectory tracking performance and stability issues under constant velocity motion are carried out for three types. Various simulations and experiments have been also performed for these three types. It is shown that the proposed off-hooked trailer system produces better tracking performance than the other types.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.289-297
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• 2004

This paper deals with the design and control of passive multiple trailer systems for practical applications. Due to the cost and complexity of the trailer mechanism, passive systems are preferred to active systems in this research. The design and control objective is to minimize the trajectory tracking errors occurring in passive multiple trailers. Three sorts of passive trailer systems, off-hooked, direct-hooked, and three-point, are discussed in this paper. Trajectory tracking performance and stability issues under constant curvature reference trajectories are investigated for these three types. As well, various simulations and experiments have been performed for each type. It is shown that the proposed off-hooked trailer system produces a tracking performance that is superior to the others.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.273-280
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• 2009

It is difficult to find a practical solution for the backward-motion control of a car-like mobile robot with n passive trailers. Unlike an omni-directional robot, a car-like mobile robot has nonholonomic constraints and limitations of the steering angle. For these reasons, the backward motion control problem of a car-like mobile robot with $n$ passive trailers is not trivial. In spite of difficulties, backing up a trailer system is useful for parking control. In this study, we proposed a mechanical alteration which is connecting $n$ passive trailers to the front bumper of a car to improve the backward motion control performance. Theoretical verification and simulations show that the backward-motion control of a general car with n passive trailers can be successfully carried out by using the proposed approach.