A Beacon System for the Localization of Distributed Robotic Teams

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a localization system for a team of centimeter-scale robots that collaborate to map and explore unknown environments. The localization system uses ultrasound to measure the distance from each moving robot to three stationary robots that serve as beacons. From these distance measurements the position of the robots is derived using a trilateration algorithm. The robot team can move over large distances by using a leap-frogging approach in which different robots serve as beacons at different times. The localization system is able to obtain position estimates more accurate than can be achieved through dead reckoning, and yet, does not require any landmarks or previously deployed beacons. Keywords: collaborative positioning, localization, ultrasonic range finder, miniature mobile robotics. 1 Introduction and Related Work In this article, we present the design of a localization system for a team of centimeter-scale robots that collaborate to map and explo...