A modular cost-effective mobile robot navigation system using RFID technology

Abstract

Skilled navigation in mobile robotics usually requires solving two problems pertaining to the knowledge of the position of the robot, and to a motion control strategy. When no prior knowledge of the environment is available, the problem becomes even more challenging, since the robot has to build a map of its surroundings as it moves. These three tasks ought to be solved in conjunction due to their interdependency. The present manuscript proposes a novel mobile robot navigation technique using a customized RFID reader with two receiving antennas mounted on the robot and a number of standard RFID tags attached in the robot's environment to define its path. In here, we show that using the RF signal from the RFID tags as an analog feedback signals can be a promising strategy to navigate a mobile robot within an unknown or uncertain indoor environment. This method is computationally simpler and more cost-effective than many of its counterparts in the state of the art. It is also modular and easy to implement since it is independent of the robot's architecture and its workspace. A set of numerical computer simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. © 2009 Academy Publisher.