Low-cost optical odometry for wheeled mobile robots

Abstract

Self-localisation is an important issue in mobile robotics. In order to keep track of its position and orientation a mobile robot frequently applies a combination of vision-based and odometry measurements. This paper addresses the design and implementation of an optical odometry sensor to be used in the RoboCup Middle Size League. Our sensor design is based on a commercial optical mouse sensor. We adopt this sensor to the RoboCup environment by adding appropriate interfacing electronics and a newly designed optical path. Experimental results using the sensor prototype and a motion simulator clearly indicate that our sensor design is able to act as a building block of a mobile robot's self-localisation module.