Comparison of PID and Fuzzy Controllers in an Omnidirectional Robot to Follow People

In this work we are interested in evaluating the response of proportional-integral-derivative and fuzzy con-trollers. The controllers are implemented in an omnidirectional robot for the purpose of tracking a person. A kinect device is used to detect the person and the distance between the person and the visual sensor is obtained. To follow the person to a set distance, the speed of the motors is controlled. The proportional-integral-derivative controller parameters are optimized with a genetic algorithm. Experiments were performed in a simulated environment CoppeliaSim. The results obtained suggest that the response of the controllers evaluated are comparable. Therefore, it is shown that the use of a genetic algorithm is a good strategy to improve the response of the proportional-integral-derivative controller.