Grid based fault detection and calibration of sensors on mobile robots

Abstract

This paper presents a concept for fault detection and calibration of external sensors on mobile robots, based on a grid representation of the environment. For every grid cell consistency measures are derived by evaluating the information stored in them. The measures are then used to deliberate about the condition of the involved sensors. Thereby a mobile robot is equipped with the capability of detecting faulty sensors during its operation. The approach is suitable for unknown environments and is flexible in terms of failure and sensor types. Furthermore, it allows sensor calibration in unknown environments without any reference objects. The approach was verified by several experiments with the autonomous mobile robot ROAMER using ultrasonic sensors.