A mobile robot with trailers is small-time controllable

J.P. Laumond, "Controllability of a multibody mobile robot" in IEEE Trans. on Robotics and Automation, 9 (6), Dec. 1993.

J.P. Laumond and J.J. Risler, "Nonholonomic systems : controllability and complexity" in Theoretical Computer Sciences, 157, pp. 101--114, 1996.

Planning collision-free feasible paths can be done by approximating holonomic paths with a sequence of optimal feasible paths

J.P. Laumond, S. Sekhavat and M. Vaisset, "Collision-free motion planning for a mobile robot with a trailer" in IFAC Symp. on Robot Control, Capri, Sept. 1994.

J.P. Laumond, "Nonholonomic motion planning via optimal control" in Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics, K. Golberg, D. Halperin, J.C. Latombe and R. Wilson Eds, A.K. Peters, Ltd. 1995.

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Planning collision-free feasible paths can be also done by combining techniques (approximation sheme, probabilistic approache, sinusoidal inputs

S. Sekhavat, P. Svestka, J.P. Laumond and M. Overmars, "Multi-level path planning for nonholonomic robots using semi-holonomic subsystems", 2nd Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics, WAFR'96, Toulouse, July 1996 (to appear in Int. Journal of Robotics Research)