Localization of a high-speed mobile robot using global features

Abstract

SUMMARYA new localization algorithm is proposed for a fast moving mobile robot, which utilizes only one beacon and the global features of the differential-driving mobile robot. It takes a relatively long time to localize a mobile robot with active beacon sensors, since the distance to the beacon is measured based on the traveling time of the ultrasonic signal. When the mobile robot is moving slowly, the measurement time does not yield a high error. At a higher speed, however, the localization error becomes too large for the mobile robot to be located accurately. Therefore, in high-speed mobile robot operations, instead of using two or more active beacons, only one active beacon and the global features of the mobile robot are used to localize the mobile robot. The two global features are the radius and center of the rotational motion for the differential-driving mobile robot, which generally describe the motion of, and are used for the trace prediction of, a mobile robot. In high-speed operations, the localizer finds the intersection point of this predicted trace and the circle, which is centered at the beacon whose radius is the distance between the mobile robot and the beacon. This new approach overcomes the large localization error caused by the high speed of the mobile robot. The performance of the new localization algorithm is verified through experiments with a high-speed mobile robot.