Localization Safety Validation for Autonomous Robots

Abstract

This paper presents a method to validate localization safety for a preplanned trajectory in a given environment. Localization safety is defined as integrity risk and quantified as the probability of an undetected localization failure. Integrity risk differs from previously used metrics in robotics in that it accounts for unmodeled faults and evaluates safety under the worst possible combination of faults. The methodology can be applied prior to mission execution and thus can be employed to evaluate the safety of potential trajectories. The work has been formulated for localization via smoothing, which differs from previously reported integrity monitoring methods that rely on Kalman filtering. Simulation and experimental results are analyzed to show that localization safety is effectively quantified.