Autonomous Indoor Mobile Robot Navigation by Detecting Fluorescent Tubes

Abstract

This paper proposes an indoor navigation system for an autonomous mobile robot including the teaching of its environment. The self-localization of the vehicle is done by detecting the position and orientation of fluorescent tubes located above it’s desired path thanks to a camera pointing to the ceiling. A map of the lights based on odometry data is built in advance by the robot guided by an operator. Then a graphic user interface is used to define the trajectory the robot must follow with respect to the lights. While the robot is moving, the position and orientation of the lights it detects are compared to the map values, which enables the vehicle to cancel odometry errors. 1