Hough transform based localization for mobile robots

Abstract

: - Knowing the position and orientation of a mobile robot situated in an environment is a critical element for eectively accomplishing complex tasks requiring autonomous navigation. Techniques for robot self-localization have been extensively studied in the past, but an eective general solution does not exist, and it is often necessary to integrate dierent methods in order to improve the overall result. In this paper we present a self-localization method that is based on matching a geometric reference map with a representation of range information acquired by the robot's sensors. The technique is adequate for indoor oÆce-like environments, and specically for those environments that can be represented by a set of segments. We exploit the robustness properties of the Hough Transform for recognizing lines from a sets of points in order to dene an eective and robust self-localization method for dynamic environments. We have implemented and successfully tested this method in the Robo...