Self-Localisation in the ‘Senario’ Autonomous Wheelchair

This paper introduces the Focused Stochastic Diffusion Network as a novel method of self-localisation for an autonomous wheelchair in a complex, busy environment. The space of possible positions is explored in parallel by a set of cells searching in a competitive co-operative manner for the most likely position of the wheelchair in its environment. Experimental results from the SENARIO autonomous wheelchair project indicate the technique is practical and robust.

[1]  Ingemar J. Cox,et al.  Blanche-an experiment in guidance and navigation of an autonomous robot vehicle , 1991, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[2]  William A. Hoff,et al.  Autonomous hazardous waste drum inspection vehicle , 1995, IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag..

[3]  Robert F. Cromp,et al.  The design of an autonomous vehicle for the disabled , 1986, IEEE J. Robotics Autom..

[4]  Y. Agostini,et al.  Location and high level planning for a powered wheelchair , 1994, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics.

[5]  John Mark Bishop,et al.  A compound eye for a simple robotic insect , 1998 .

[6]  E. Freund,et al.  Laser Scanner Based Free Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles , 1993 .

[7]  Michael Drumheller,et al.  Mobile Robot Localization Using Sonar , 1987, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[8]  R. Lippmann,et al.  An introduction to computing with neural nets , 1987, IEEE ASSP Magazine.

[9]  J. Bishop.  Stochastic searching networks , 1989 .

[10]  Cécile Durieu,et al.  Localization of a mobile robot with beacons taking erroneous data into account , 1989, Proceedings, 1989 International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[11]  John Mark Bishop,et al.  The Stochastic Search Network , 1992 .

[12]  I. Turksen,et al.  Model-based localization for an autonomous mobile robot equipped with sonar sensors , 1995, 1995 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. Intelligent Systems for the 21st Century.

[13]  P. Beattie.  SENARIO: SENsor Aided intelligent wheelchaiR navigatIOn , 1995 .

[14]  Slawomir J. Nasuto,et al.  Convergence Analysis of Stochastic Diffusion Search , 1999, Parallel Algorithms Appl..

[15]  David Wilkes.  Using point range samples for reprojection of model views for landmark-based robot navigation , 1994, Other Conferences.

[16]  Lionel Tarassenko,et al.  RADIAL BASIS FUNCTION NETWORKS FOR MOBILE ROBOT LOCALIZATION , 1994 .

[17]  Lionel Tarassenko,et al.  Robot path planning using VLSI resistive grids , 1993 .

[18]  Alan F. Murray,et al.  Real-Time Autonomous Robot Navigation Using VLSI Neural Networks , 1990, NIPS.

[19]  V. Lumelsky,et al.  Handling real-world motion planning: a hospital transport robot , 1992, IEEE Control Systems.