Vision-based Monte Carlo - Kalman Localization in a Known Dynamic Environment

Localization is one of the fundamental problems in mobile robot navigation. In this paper, we present a vision-based localization method called Monte Carlo-Kalman localization (MCL-EKF). This method is a combination of Monte Carlo localization (MCL) and extended Kalman filter (EKF) enhancement. We firstly give a detailed implementation of MCL with the emphasis on dealing with multiple types of perceptual information and solving the problem of robot kidnapping. Next, we establish EKFs on landmarks to build a real-time environment around the robot. Information from this real-time environment will be utilized by the perception model of MCL. We also elaborate on our methods of dealing with a single or two landmarks in the perception model. We carry out all experiments on Sony AIBO ERS-7 robots. Results show that the MCL-EKF reduces perceptual errors, increases precision and stability and still keeps a good ability of recovery

[1]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Robust Monte Carlo localization for mobile robots , 2001, Artif. Intell..

[2]  Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte,et al.  Mobile robot localization by tracking geometric beacons , 1991, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[3]  Liqiang Feng,et al.  Navigating Mobile Robots: Systems and Techniques , 1996 .

[4]  Manuela M. Veloso,et al.  Sensor resetting localization for poorly modelled mobile robots , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).

[5]  J. L. Roux An Introduction to the Kalman Filter , 2003 .

[6]  Thomas Röfer,et al.  Vision-based fast and reactive monte-carlo localization , 2003, ICRA.

[7]  Jens-Steffen Gutmann,et al.  Markov-Kalman localization for mobile robots , 2002, Object recognition supported by user interaction for service robots.

[8]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Monte Carlo Localization: Efficient Position Estimation for Mobile Robots , 1999, AAAI/IAAI.

[9]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  An experimental comparison of localization methods , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Innovations in Theory, Practice and Applications (Cat. No.98CH36190).

[10]  W. Burgard,et al.  Markov Localization for Mobile Robots in Dynamic Environments , 1999, J. Artif. Intell. Res..

[11]  Peter Stone,et al.  Practical Vision-Based Monte Carlo Localization on a Legged Robot , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.