Smart Robot Wall-Following Control Using a Sonar Behavior-based Fuzzy Controller in Unknown Environments

Abstract

This paper addresses a sonar behavior-based fuzzy controller (BFC) for mobile robot wall-following control. The wall-following task is usually used to explore an unknown environment. The proposed BFC consists of three sub-fuzzy controllers, including Straight-based Fuzzy Controller, Left-based Fuzzy Controller, and Right-based Fuzzy Controller. The proposed wall-following controller has three characteristics: the mobile robot keeps a distance from the wall, the mobile robot has a high moving velocity, and the mobile robot has a good robustness ability of disturbance. The proposed BFC will be used to control the real mobile robot. The Pioneer 3-DX mobile robot has sonar sensors in front and sides, and it is used in this study. The inputs of BFC are sonar sensors data and the outputs of BFC are robot’s left/right wheel speed. Experimental results show that the proposed BFC successfully performs the mobile robot wall-following task in a real unknown environment.