Particle Filter SLAM for Indoor Navigation of a Mobile Robot Using Ultrasonic Beacons

Abstract

This paper proposes a particle filter approach for SLAM(Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) of a mobile robot. The SLAM denotes estimation of both the robot location and map while the robot navigates in an unknown environment without map. The proposed method estimates robot location simultaneously with the locations of the ultrasonic beacons which constitute landmarks for navigation. The particle filter method represents the locations of the robot and landmarks in probabilistic manner by the distribution of particles. The method takes care of the uncertainty of the landmarks' location as well as that of the robot motion. Therefore, the locations of the landmarks are updated including uncertainty at every sampling time. Performance of the proposed method is verified through simulation and experiments. The method yields practically useful mapping information even if the range data from the landmarks include random noise. Also, it provides more accurate and robust estimation of the robot location than the usual least squares methods or dead-reckoning method.