A vision-based position control methodology to drive mobile robots towards target positions

In this paper, a simple vision-based position control approach is developed for driving a wheeled mobile robot towards target position(s). The trajectory tracking problem is simplified as a combination of point-to-point movements between every two adjacent targets. The controller contains a velocity and steering angle control, using a proposed visual sensing methodology to measure the distance between the vehicle and the desired position and the desired rotary angle. It is proved that when the control gains are properly chosen, the robot asymptotically converges to the desired target position. The method is simple and easy to implement. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.