Computational approaches for improving the performance of path tracking controllers for mobile robots

Performance of path tracking controllers for mobile robots is usually constrained to the tuning of a set of gains within previously known boundaries. In industrial applications, controller tuning is a time consuming task, which is especially critical when the gain values have a considerable impact on the use of the robot's energy resources. In this paper, we propose a set of approaches to automatically improve the performance of well-known path tracking controllers used for agricultural applications of automated agricultural machinery. The effect of the proposed strategy can be better appreciated during the transient response of the robot when it has to maneuver along a non-kinematically compatible path. The results presented in this work show that the robot's path tracking performance is improved up to 15% using the proposed approaches.