Study on cooperative positioning system (basic principle and measurement experiment)

Several position identification methods have been used for mobile robots. We propose a new method called "cooperative positioning system (CPS)". For CPS, we divide the robots into two groups, A and B. The group A remains stationary and acts as a landmark while group B is moving. Group B then stops and acts as a landmark for group A. This "dance" is repeated until the target position is reached. By using the concept of "portable landmarks", CPS has a far lower accumulation of positioning error than dead reckoning, and can work in three-dimensions which is not possible with dead reckoning; it can therefore work in uncharted environments. In this paper we outline the second prototype CPS machine model (CPS-II) and report the results of position identification experiments. Experimental results using this model give a positioning accuracy of o.4% for position and 1.0 degree for attitude.