Intelligent control of nonholonomic mobile robots with fuzzy perception

This paper is focused on the intelligent control of vehicles with nonholonomic constraints. A new method to compute a fuzzy perception of the environment is presented, dealing with the uncertainties and imprecisions from the sensorial system and taking into account nonholonomic constraints of the vehicle. This fuzzy perception is used, both in the design of each reactive behavior and solving the problem of behavior combination, to implement a fuzzy behavior-based control architecture. Furthermore, teleoperation and planned behaviors, together with their combination with reactive ones, are considered; improving the capabilities of the intelligent control system and its practical application. Experimental results, of an application to control the ROMEO-3R autonomous vehicle, demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.