Optimizing the Performance of a Wheeled Mobile Robot for Use in Agriculture 

Abstract

Utilizing wheeled mobile robot systems may be essential to solving some of agriculture’s upcoming problems. The present state of wheeled mobile robot systems necessitates the development of an adequate controller algorithm due to their instability, which calls for a control mechanism to enhance stability. As such, much study is needed to address this issue. Currently, proportional, integral, derivative (PID) controllers are widely employed for this purpose; however, because of parameter variations or disturbances, the PID approach is often not acceptable. Some of the problems with PID controllers can be solved with alternative control strategies, such as linear-quadratic regulator (LQR) control. For this work, a four-wheel skid-steering mobile robot’s kinematic model was created in order to evaluate the performance of LQR control. Three scenarios—only non-zero state expensive; control expensive, non-zero state cheap; and control cheap, non-zero state expensive—were analyzed using the capabilities of the wheeled mobile robot. Based on these circumstances, the peak time, settling time, and rising time for cheap control were determined to be 0.1, 7.82, and 4.39 s, respectively.