Comparison of Control Algorithms by Simulating Power Consumption of Differential Drive Mobile Robot Motion Control in Vineyard Row

Abstract The paper deals with comparing electricity power consumption of various control algorithms by simulating differential mobile robot motion control in a vineyard row. In field of autonomous mobile robotics, the quality of control is a crucial aspect. Besides the precision of control, the energy consumption for motion is becoming an increasingly demanding characteristic of a controller due to the increasing costs of fossil fuels and electricity. A simulation model of a differential drive mobile robot motion in a vineyard row was created, including robot dynamics for evaluating motion consumption, and there were implemented commonly used PID, Fuzzy, and LQ control algorithms, the task of which was to navigate the robot through the centre of vineyard row section by measuring distances from trellises on both robot sides. The comparison was carried out using Matlab software and the best results in terms of both power consumption and control accuracy were achieved by LQI controller. The designed model for navigating the robot through the vineyard row centre and optimized controllers were implemented in a real robot and tested under real conditions.