From Nonlinear to Fuzzy Approaches in Trajectory Tracking Control of Wheeled Mobile Robots

In this paper, two knowledge based controllers are proposed to overcome the difficulties of a computed torque nonlinear controller (NC) in perfect trajectory tracking of nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots (WMRs). First, the effects of different dynamic models developed in angular and Cartesian coordinate systems are fully examined on the persistent excitation condition and consequently on the trajectory tracking performance of WMRs. Using the dynamic model coordinated in the Cartesian frame as the base of the NC results in perfect compensation of large position off-tracks and unbiased estimation of the plant's unknown parameters. However, using the WMR's dynamic model with rotation angles of driving wheels as the base of nonlinear and fuzzy controllers leads to accurate orientation tracking. Through replacing the proportional and differential terms of the NC by fuzzy functions, a fuzzy nonlinear controller (FNC) is generated. Due to the complicated dynamics of the WMR in which the center of mass does not coincide with the center of rotation, the expert knowledge of fuzzy controllers is extracted considering the rotation angles and rates of driving wheels as input variables. Fuzzy tuning of the NC results in a superior tracking performance against measurement noises, though the control torques are decreased and smoothed significantly. Second, a complete fuzzy controller (FC) is generated to make perfect tracking of the WMR's position and orientation. The local stability analysis of fuzzy controllers is examined considering the corresponding analytical structures as nonlinear controllers. The superior performances of the proposed fuzzy controllers compared to those of the NCs are evaluated through simulations.