Master-Slave Tracking System for Mobile Robots

In mobile robot applications, to track and follow moving targets is a challenging task. In this paper there is developed a robot tracking system with two mobile robots: the master robot tele-operated from an Android application via Bluetooth, and the autonomous slave robot with three ultrasonic sensors which will track the master. The tracking algorithm of the slave robot employs: i) a position control to maintain a constant distance between slave and master, and ii) a tracking direction control in one of the six control states detected by a finite-state machine based on fuzzy logic, with smooth transitions between states. The master-slave mobile robot system and the tracking algorithm are designed and implemented by using low-cost microcontroller boards. The experimental results validate the proposed master-slave solution with tracking algorithm.