Path planning and tracking of wheeled mobile robot: using firefly algorithm and kinematic controller combined with sliding mode control

With the evolution of the industrial processes, mobile robots have gained a considerable interest due to their ability to perform rapidly and efficiently complex tasks, notably the dangerous ones. Hence, designing a safe path and controlling the motion of mobile robot is a prerequisite requirement for any such mobile robot mission. This paper employs firefly algorithm (FA) to solve the path planning problem. The developed algorithm engages a population of fireflies to find a shortest trajectory without any physical meeting with obstacles from the starting point to the destination based on their brightness. FA covers two kinds of objectives which are the path length and the path safety. In order to test the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, a comparison with particle swarm optimization (PSO) and teaching learning-based optimization (TLBO) was made. Furthermore, a kinematic controller combined with sliding mode control (SMC) approach is proposed to follow the obtained path by FA. The kinematic controller was developed to provide the required velocities, whereas two SMCs are adopted for velocity tracking and steering control of mobile robot. In order to attain its best performance, the FA algorithm was also devoted to find its best parameters. To verify its feasibility, two well-known reference trajectories (circle and 8 shape) were considered. Finally, the involved results in this work indicate that FA outperforms other algorithms, which can be used as a path planar to generate an adequate trajectory of mobile robot and demonstrate that the designed controller provides height tracking ability.