World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008
Fuzzy Logic Reasoning to Control Mobile
Robot on Pre-defined Strip Path
S. K. Harisha, Ramkanth Kumar P., M. Krishna, and S. C. Sharma
 mathematical or logical models. Fuzzy control provides a
AbstractThe mobile robot is a small four-wheeled mobile
platform, which was controlled by a micro-controller. The robot
could sense its surroundings with the aid of various electronic
sensors while mechanical actuators were used to move it around.
Robot behaviour was determined by the program, which was loaded
to the microcontroller. In that way, it could be used as a general
robotics experimental platform. The autonomous mobile robot was
designed and built in order to perform various navigation algorithms.
The design consisted of two main sections: Electronic analysis of the
various robot sensors and Programming techniques used to interface
the sensors with the robots microcontroller. In this paper its shown
that the path-guiding robot with IR sensors and obstacle detection is
using IR proximity sensors. The predefined path is having varied
turns, the fuzzy reasoning take care of speed to keep mobile robot in
the defined path. The results are proved experimentally and the
surface viewer graph is obtained from the Mat Lab.
KeywordsFuzzy logic, Mobile robot, Strip, Sensors.
I. INTRODUCTION
A main issue in mobile robot is navigation in an uncertain
and complex environment and considerable research has
been done for making an efficient algorithm for the mobile
robot navigation. Among them, adaptive control and behavior-
based control are most popular control algorithms and driving
research in robot navigation. Adaptive navigation control is a
method using pre-defined equations that represent the robots
moving path to reach targets and show strong ability in well-
known environment [1]. However it is hard to build precise
path generating equation for unknown and complex
environment. Evolutionary computation provides an
alternative design method that adapts the robot's behavior
without requiring a precisely specified model of the world. Its
adaptive power enables the robot to deal with changes in the
environment and to acquire a robust behavior tolerating noisy
and unreliable sensor information. Fuzzy systems employ a
mode of approximate reasoning, which allows them to make
decisions based on imprecise and incomplete information in a
way similar to human beings. A fuzzy system offers the
advantage of knowledge description by means of linguistic
concepts without requiring the complexity and precision of
S. K Harisha is with R.V College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka,
India (e-mail: harisha_rh@rediffmail.com, phone: 0091-80-28601700; fax
:0091-80-28600337, www.rvce.ac.in).
Ramakanth P Kumar is with R. V. College of Engineering, India (e-mail:
mechharish76@gmail.com).
M. Krishna, Director R&D, is with RV College of Engineering, India.
S. C. Sharma, Principal, is with R. V. College of Engineering, India.
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flexible tool to model the relationship between input
information and control output and is distinguished by its
robustness with respect to noise and variation of system
parameters. Soft computing is concerned with the design of
intelligent and robust systems, which exploit the tolerance for
imprecision inherent in many real world problems. In order to
achieve this objective, soft computing suggests fuzzy logic
reasoning.
The goal of this paper is to create a robot that will follow a
specific color of line. A line following robot is a precursor to
other autonomous robots not confined to following a line.
These robots can be used to explore places that are too
dangerous or otherwise impossible for humans to go. The
fuzzy reasoning gives desirable speed control for this type of
application.
II. FUZZY LOGIC THEORY
In robotics design, it is often desirable to have a robot act
more like a human being than a machine. Traditional logic is
based on two values, one (true) and zero (false). This is
inadequate for approximating the human decision making
process. Fuzzy logic uses the entire interval between zero and
one, and can therefore be used to closely mimic human
reasoning [5]. The design process of a fuzzy logic system can
generally be separated into three stages:
x Fuzzification
x Rule Evaluation
x Defuzzification
In the fuzzification stage fuzzy inputs are sent into the
fuzzy controller. The inputs are fuzzified by applying with the
membership functions. The membership functions change the
input values into degree values of membership for each
function. Once the inputs are fuzzified, the rules are applied to
determine a response to the inputs. In the defuzzification
stage, the results of the rule evaluation are translated into
discrete outputs. This can be done in various ways, using
different kind of algorithms. A common and easy approach to
defuzzification is Center-of-Gravity (COG) method.
III. FUZZY CONTROLLERS
Two fuzzy controllers are designed in this paper, one for
controlling speed of the mobile robot depending on the radius
of curve, other for detecting obstacles on the path. The input
 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008

and output membership functions are defined and are related V. RULE EVALUATION - DIRECTION CONTROL
with sets of rules. After a fuzzy controller is chosen based on
the information obtained from the surroundings, the fuzzy TABLE I
MOTION WITH RESPECT TO SENSOR POSITION
controller has a process, which consists of three stages:
fuzzification, rule evaluation and defuzzification. The outputs Sensor/Strip LB CW RB
of fuzzy controllers control the velocity of two wheels of the LS F L -
mobile robot under various turns and also in avoiding CS R F L
RS - R F
obstacles. Fig. 1 shows fuzzy inference system with two
inputs and one output.
Rules for desired motion
1. If (LS is LB) and (CS is LB) and (RS is CW) then
(DIRCT is RGT)
2. If (LS is LB) and (CS is CW) and (RS is RB) then
(DIRCT is FWD)
3. If (LS is CW) and (CS is RB) and (RS is RB) then
(DIRCT is LFT)
4. If (LS is LB) and (CS is CW) and (RS is CW) then
Fig. 1 Fuzzy inference table (DIRCT is RGT)
5. If (LS is CW) and (CS is CW) and (RS is RB) then
IV. FUZZIFICATION (DIRCT is LFT)
6. If (LS is LB) and (CS is CB) and (RS is RB) then
Two fuzzy membership functions are designed to fuzzify
(DIRCT is BCK)**
the data from IR and proximity sensors. Membership function
7. If (LS is CW) and (CS is CW) and (RS is CW) then
shown in Fig. 2 is used to fuzzify the value of variables. The
(DIRCT is FWD)**
membership function considered here is triangulation type.
8. If (LS is CW) and (CS is CB) and (RS is CW) then
The input angle is defined with linguistic variables (LHI-Left
(DIRCT is FWD)**
High Inclination, LMI-Left Medium Inclination, LLI-Left
Low Inclination, STR-Straight. Similarly for the right side
In the above rules - Rule no 6 and 7 requires additional
RHI, RMI, RLI).
rules to take decision.

Fig. 2 Membership function for Input angle

Fig. 4 DIRCT Vs CS, RS
The second input considered in our mobile tracking is
obstacle presence and absence. Here we considered classical
set; witch defines with respect to ON and OFF condition. The
robot stops when it detects the obstacle with certain range.

Fig. 5 DIRCT Vs LS, RS

Fig. 3 Membership function for input obstacle distance

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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008
Fig. 6 DIRCT Vs LS, CS
VI. RULE EVALUATION
Speed Controller: Fig. 4 shows the membership function for
the desired output variable Velocity, The fuzzy controller
output is denoted by linguistic variables (SL-Slow, MED-
Medium Fast, FST-Fast and MFST- Maximum Fast).
Fig. 4 Membership function for output Variable
Fuzzy controller Rules for speed control: Fuzzy controller
has total 14 rules for navigation, desired speed, avoiding
obstacles and following the pre-defined path. To realize these
navigation skills, following rules are defined.
<Rules for desired speed>
Rule 1: If (path is straight) and (if obstacle is absent) then
(Velocity is Max Fast)
Rule 2: If (Path is inclined left high inclination) and
(obstacle is absent) then (Velocity is slow)
Rule 3: If (Path is inclined left medium inclination) and
(obstacle is absent) then (Velocity is medium)
Rule 4: If (Path is inclined left low inclination) and
(obstacle is absent) then (Velocity is fast)
Rule 5: If (Path is inclined right low inclination) and
(obstacle is absent) then (Velocity is fast)
Rule 6: If (Path is inclined right medium inclination) and
(obstacle is absent) then (Velocity is medium fast)
Rule 7: If (Path is inclined right high inclination) and
(obstacle is absent) then (Velocity is slow)
Rule 8: If (Path is inclined left high inclination) and
(obstacle is Present) then (Velocity is zero)
Rule 9: If (Path is inclined right high inclination) and
(obstacle is Present) then (Velocity is zero)
Rule 10: If (Path is inclined left medium inclination) and
(obstacle is Present) then (Velocity is zero)
Rule 11: If (Path is inclined right medium inclination) and
(obstacle is Present) then (Velocity is zero)
Remaining three rules for low left, Low Right, Straight
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inclination with obstacle present output is Velocity zero.
Fig. 5 Rules viewer for the membership function
VII. DEFUZZIFICATION
If the values considered in the in the fuzzy sets are in terms
of degree variation then in the final output the fuzzy values
should be converted in to crisp value by using any
defuzzification method. The most easy and commonly used
defuzzification method is Center Of Gravity (COG) can be
used. The COG defuzzification method can be expressed as
follows:
m
P j 'U j
1
'U m
Pj
1
'U  Output Variable
m  Number of Rules
P j  is the grade of jth output of MF
'U j  Output label for the value contributed by the jth MF
VIII. THE EXPERIMENTAL VEHICLE
The vehicle has a custom-made metal frame, which is
mounted with two independent left and right driving wheels
driven by two DC motors, respectively. It does not have any
steering mechanism, but can change its navigation direction
by changing the velocity of the driving wheels independently.
If the velocity of the right wheel is greater than the velocity of
the left wheel, the robot will turn left vice versa. Using micro
controller with the input from sensors controls the two motors
of mobile robot. Two separate DC battery sets are used to
provide power to the motors and the control part respectively
to reduce the switching noise induced by the motors. The
control circuit and the driver circuit are provided on board.
The robot uses 2 IR sensors at the middle to sense the white
strip path and one on either side to sense black background.
The sensors are tuned to corresponding black and white colors
to keep track of predefined path. The rules for the robot to
keep track and avoid hitting obstacle is feed to the micro
controller in the form of programme, micro controller decides
the next move according to the algorithm. The vehicle is
equipped with two sets of IR sensor provided below the
vehicle to keep track of white strip on black background, the
 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008

proximity sensor is provided at the front to detect obstacle
during navigation. Specially designed Atmega 16 micro
controller is used to control the robot navigation.
Proximity Sensors
When graph of desired speed and angle of turn plotted, the
graph obtained is shown in figure. We can see the variation of
speed from high angle to straight path. The speed is maximum
for straight path.

IR Sensors

Steering wheel
Fig. 5 Vehicle model

IX. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Test Course: Fig. 6 illustrates a predefined test Path for
Fig. 8 Graph of Speed Vs Angle
mobile robot navigation. The path defined is having various
turns and curves to check the output speed variation. One
In this experiment the proximity sensor is tuned to the range
obstacle has been placed along the vehicles route to check
of 8cm to 4 cm. When the vehicle reaches near to the obstacle
obstacle hitting. The vehicle is positioned at the initial place
the speed of the vehicle reduces and finally stops maintaining
directing left direction and obstacle behind it, the vehicle
distance of 4 cm.
traverse with different speeds and stops at the obstacle. The
variation obtained can be observed from the Mat Lab surface
viewer.

Vehicle Obstacle Fig. 8 Graph of Speed Vs Obstacle

Fig. 6 Predefined path for experimental Results

Surface viewer: 3D Graph of two input Vs one output is
shown (Inputs: Obstacle, Angle of turn, Output: Desired
speed).
X. CONCLUSION
An autonomous vehicle equipped with commercially
available Proximity sensor and sets of IR sensors which are
tuned to the black and white color in order to trace the pre-
defined path. Fuzzy logic reasoning is adapted to the
navigation control of the mobile robot and it is tested on real
platform, the experimental result shows that the developed
vehicle could navigate along the strips with different speeds
and stops when vehicle approaches to obstacle.

Fig. 7 Surface viewer- 3D graph
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge the help of Dr. M
Krishna Director R&D and also thank each and every one
whom is directly and indirectly involved in the experimental
work.

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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008

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S. K. Harisha born on 18.07.1976, in Madikeri, Karnataka, India. He has

obtained his first degree in mechanical engineering from Kuvempu university
securing distinction in the Year 1998. he passed out successfully from Sir M
visveshvaraya Institute of Technology, VTU, getting his post graduation in
Computer Integrated manufacturing in the Year 2004 at Bangalore ,
Karnataka, India. Presently he is engauged in securing his doctorate from
avinashilingam university, coimbatore, Tamil nadu, India.
He is presently working in R V College of Engineering, he has Previous
experience in East Pont College of Engineering for a period of two years and
in New Horizon College of Engineering for period of three years.

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