This focused monograph on nonholonomic manipulators builds upon an increasing interest in nonholonomic mechanical systems in robotics and control engineering. The scope of this book is the definition and development of new nonholonomic machines which are designed on the basis of nonlinear control theory for nonholonomic mechanical systems. A key feature of the work is the possibility to exploit nonholonomic theory to design innovative mechanical systems with a reduced number of actuators without reducing the size of their controllable space. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of the problem from the theoretical development of the various control schemes to prototyping new types of manipulators, while testing their performance by simulation and experiments in a number of significant cases.

Presents recent results in design and control of robot manipulator which is controllable with only two actuators using nonholonomic constraints Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt
Introduction.- Design of the nonholonomic manipulator.- Prototyping and control of the nonholonomic manipulator.- Design of the chained form manipulator.- Prototyping and control of the chained form manipulator.- Conclusion.