Cooperative positioning with multiple robots

Abstract

A number of positioning identification techniques have been used for mobile robots. Dead reckoning is a popular method, but is not reliable when a robot travels long distances or over an uneven surface because of variations in wheel diameter and wheel slippage. The landmark method, which estimates the current position relative to landmarks, cannot be used in an uncharted environment. The authors propose a new method called "cooperative positioning with multiple robots". For cooperative positioning, the authors divide the robots into two groups, A and B. One group, say A, remains stationary and acts as a landmark while group B moves. The moving group B then stops and acts as a landmark for group A. This "dance" is repeated until the target robot position are reached. Cooperative positioning has a far lower accumulated positioning error than dead reckoning, and can work in three-dimensions which is not possible with dead reckoning. Also, this method has inherent landmarks and therefore works in uncharted environments. This paper discusses the positioning accuracy of the authors' method with error variances for an example with three mobile robots.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>