A mixed analogue/digital fuzzy system for indoor mobile robot navigation

Analogue techniques for the implementation of fuzzy control seem to be taken in competition with digital techniques. Since both methods have their own strengths, an attempt has been made to marry the two to produce a navigation system for an autonomous mobile robot. The system developed takes advantage of the speed and compactness of analogue fuzzy controllers to implement some of the tasks, especially where a fast quasi-continuous response is required. The versatility, adaptability and memory capability of a general-purpose microcontroller are then used to perform the tasks for which the available analogue controllers are not suitable. The partitioning of the tasks and the structuring of the rule base are discussed