Kinematic control in a four‐wheeled Mecanum mobile robot for trajectory tracking

Abstract The challenges of the modern world require mobile robots with the ability to navigate in congested environments with high levels of manoeuvrability. Therefore, the Mecanum wheel may be viable for addressing this challenge. This paper presents the experimental results of a kinematic control strategy, which involves considering the dynamic model as a black box, with only the input and output signals being known. To do this, high‐level and low‐level controllers are formulated and explained. The high level aims to control the desired position of the mobile robot, which can be useful for navigation tasks. On the other hand, low‐level control involves nested controllers to regulate the speed of the mobile robot wheels. Both levels are related and computed through pure kinematics transformations with a dSPACE ds1103 card and MATLAB/Simulink software. In total, 120 experiments were conducted to determine the repeatability of the tests, using the combination of three widely explored control techniques in the literature: proportional‐integral‐derivative (PID), PID plus sliding modes, and PID plus quasi‐sliding modes. The experiments conducted are described in detail, and the results are analysed using statistical indices based on the RMS error and percentage improvement.