Fuzzy wall-following control of a wheelchair

Abstract

This paper proposes a fuzzy wall following control approach to guide the wheelchair robot to the target without colliding with walls and obstacles in an unknown environment. First, the control problem and the model of the wheeled-chair robot are described. Then, the ultrasonic sensors are used to detect the environmental walls and obstacles. Based on the feedback distance to the environment, the control action is separated into the right and left wall following control regions to simplify the complexity of the controller. Afterward, the fuzzy logic control rule bases are presented by involving human's intelligent operating rules of the wheelchairs. Compared with model-based control, the fuzzy logic control has more implement flexibility and high integration with multiple sensors. Finally, simulations and experiments are performed to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed control method.