3D localization technique with mobile robot for improving operability of remote-control devices

Abstract

Electrical devices which are controlled remotely by a smartphone have recently been spreading. With some typical existing systems, a user needs to identify a target device to control with only its less user-friendly ID. A system for association between actual position of the device and its position on smartphone display would allow the user to identify it easily. We call such a system “Smart Interaction System”. One of the key technologies for Smart Interaction System is localization of the device. Localization technique using some anchors with the given position to measure received signal strength indication (RSSI) of a device have been developed. They incur user burden to deploy the anchors and measure their positions. Thus alleviating the burden is still a technical challenge. As a solution to the challenge, this paper proposes a new 3D localization technique with a mobile robot including a floor cleaning robot. The mobile robot would reduce the burden by measuring RSSI while cleaning floor instead of the anchors. The proposed localization technique has been implemented with a floor cleaning robot. Experimental results show that the proposed localization technique provides the position of the device with approximately 1000mm of estimation error and is useful for Smart Interaction System.