Navigation Control of Ackermann Steering Robot Using Fuzzy Logic Controller

In this paper, a navigation control method is proposed for an Ackermann steering robot. In the proposed method, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors are used to obtain the distance between an Ackermann steering robot and objects in an unknown environment. In accordance with the distances obtained by the LiDAR sensors, the navigation control system uses a behavior manager to switch between two types of behavior control, namely, toward-goal behavior control and wall-following behavior control (WFBC). If a wall or an obstacle is detected in the current path toward the target position, the behavior manager adopts WFBC to avoid the obstacle. To achieve WFBC, a fuzzy logic controller with three subfuzzy logic controllers-namely, a straight-based fuzzy logic controller, a right-based fuzzy logic controller, and a left-based fuzzy logic controller-is adopted. Switching between these three subcontrollers is achieved in accordance with the distance and angle between the robot and a wall (or an obstacle). The input signal of the proposed fuzzy logic controller is the distance between the robot and wall (or obstacle), which is determined by a LiDAR sensor at different angles, and the output of this controller is the steering angle of the Ackermann steering robot, which can move along a wall and avoid collisions with walls (or obstacles) in an environment. Experimental results indicated that the proposed fuzzy logic controller successfully implemented navigation control in two unknown environments.