抄録
Recognition of the actual position is very important for a mobile robot to move around in its environment. The most common method for position estimation is dead reckoning, usually achieved by integrating wheel rotation along the path. This method, however, has a serious problem. It is difficult to determine the parameters such as effective wheel diameter, distance between wheels, and slip factors with sufficient accuracy. This makes the error of position estimation larger. In this paper we propose the utilization of an optical fiber gyroscope (OFG), in combination with the information provided by the wheel encoders to improve the accuracy of position estimation. The formulation using Kalman filter to combine information of encoders with that of OFG is described. The simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
