Development of Intelligent Mobile Robot for Service Use. 2nd Report. Self Position Detection System Using a Visual Sensor.

Abstract

We have developing an intelligent mobile robot for service use which can be utilized as a "secretary or helper robot" in day time and "security guard or maintenance including floor-cleaning robot" in night in office buildings. Since the service robot works or moves autonomously living together with human being in office environments, it must be able to recognize its absolute position and environment. In this paper, we proposed two types of self positioning method based on a visual sensor. One is the global self positioning (GSP) which is realized by recognition of a room number plate. The another is Iocal self positioning (LSP) in which the position is calculated by the relation between the robot and three lighting landmarks, such as two exit lamps and a fire hydrant lamp in corridors. Experimental results show that proposed methods are very effective in self positioning for the autonomous mobile robot.