Indoor Localization of a Mobile Robot Using External Sensor

Abstract

This paper describes a localization method based on Monte Carlo Localization approach for a mobile robot. The method uses range data which are measured from ultrasound transmitting beacons whose locations are given a priori. The ultrasound receiver on-board a robot detects the range from the beacons. The method requires several beacons, theoretically over three. The method proposes a sensor model for the range sensing based on statistical analysis of the sensor output. The experiment uses commercialized beacons and detector which are used for trilateration localization. The performance of the proposed method is verified through real implementation. Especially, it is shown that the performance of the localization degrades as the sensor update rate decreases compared with the MCL algorithm update rate. Though the method requires exact location of the beacons, it doesn't require geometrical map information of the environment. Also, it is applicable to estimation of the location of both the beacons and robot simultaneously.