This paper proposes a technique to manipulate an object with a nonholonomic
mobile robot by pushing, which is a nonprehensile manipulation motion
primitive. Such a primitive involves unilateral constraints associated with the
friction between the robot and the manipulated object. Violating this
constraint produces the slippage of the object during the manipulation,
preventing the correct achievement of the task. A linear time-varying model
predictive control is designed to include the unilateral constraint within the
control action properly. The approach is verified in a dynamic simulation
environment through a Pioneer 3-DX wheeled robot executing the pushing
manipulation of a package
