Algorithm for visual path following by wheeled fully actuated mobile robot

The paper is devoted to control algorithms design for autonomous mobile robots with the use of visual information in the feedback loop. The problem of visual path following by a fully actuated wheeled mobile robot is considered. The essence of the used approach is to minimize the error between desired and actual position of the given path in the image plane of the camera. The basic idea of synthesis is that the observed path in the image plane must pass through the center point of the bottom of the screen and the direction of the tangent to this path must coincide with the direction of the velocity vector of the robot. These requirements should be satisfied after homographic mapping from camera image plane to the horizontal plane, which is parallel to the plane of robot motion. The proposed approach makes use of a multipurpose control structure that provides an estimate for unmeasured component of the velocity vector and gives a compensation for constant or slowly varying disturbances. Refs 7. Figs 3.