Sliding mode fuzzy control of a skid steer mobile robot for path following

In this paper, robust sliding mode fuzzy logic control of a four-wheel differentially driven skid steer mobile robot, for path following is considered. This approach combines basic principles of sliding mode control (SMC) with fuzzy logic control (FLC). The path comprises a sequence of discrete waypoints. A novel approach in path extraction interpolates waypoints by means of quadratic curve to generate a continuous reference path. The positional data of waypoints are obtained using a vision system mounted on the mobile robot. Experimental study has been carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed controller and to compare its performance with a conventional fuzzy logic controller performance. The experimental results show that the proposed controller has achieved superior performance in the presence of model uncertainties and external disturbances with minimum reaching time, minimum distance error, and smooth control actions.