Localizing in unstructured environments: dealing with the errors

A robot navigating in an unstructured outdoor environment must determine its own location in spite of problems due to environmental conditions, sensor limitations and map inaccuracies, exact measurements are seldom known, and the combination of approximate measures can lead to large errors in self-localization. The conventional approach to this problem has been to deal with the errors either during processing or after they occur. The authors maintain that it is possible to limit the errors before they occur. The authors analyze how measurement errors affect errors in localization and propose that a simple algorithm can be used to exploit the geometric properties of landmarks in the environment in order to decrease errors in localization. The authors' goal is to choose landmarks that will provide the best localization regardless of measurement error, determine the best areas in which to identify new landmarks to be used for further localization and choose paths that will provide the least chance of "straying". The authors show the result of implementing this concept in experiments run in simulation with USGS 30 m DEM data for a robot statically locating, following a path and identifying new landmarks. >

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