Analysis of the performance of a fuzzy controller developed to guide a simulated robot

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to compare two different configurations defined for a fuzzy controller that is used to guide a simulated robot through a virtual world populated with randomly placed obstacles. In the first configuration the system controls a single output, the rotation angle of the robot. In the second configuration there is an additional output that controls the robot step. In order to compare the performance of both controllers we studied the robot stability based on the removal of rules. We also measured two parameters: processing time and the amount of steps necessary to reach the final goal. The simplicity, easiness of design and robustness of both controllers suggests that for many control tasks, it is possible to create a fuzzy system that performs well under real conditions. The results show that an improved performance was obtained when the fuzzy module processed more variables from the environment, without compromising the simplicity of the design.