(A) study on the position estimation & recovery of a small-sized mobile robot

Abstract

Position estimation capability of an autonomous mobile robot is important for a correct path tracking as well as for a complete navigation in a given environment. This paper describes the system with which the robot can estimate the current position and orientation without perceiving its any outer environments or processing vision image which requires much computational load. The designed system is new and simple. It detects wheel slippage, the main cause of navigational error, and makes it possible to recover from its strayed position. The designed system is composed of an encoder on a non-driven castor, an encoded compass disc as an absolute reference frame, two laser-diodes units with photosensors, and some pertinent data processing hardware and software. An encoded compass disc has two-track codes along its outer perimeter, which give the information on the amount of rotation as well as the direction of rotation in case when slip occurs, and gives the information on the exact turning angles to a mobile robot. The experimental results show that the designed system detects wheel slippage and recovers the robot from its strayed position very well.