Analysis by synthesis, a novel method in mobile robot self-localization

Abstract

Fast and accurate self-localization is one of the most important problems in autonomous mobile robots. In this paper, an analysis by synthesis method is presented for optimizing the self-localization procedure. In the synthesis phase of this method, the robot's observation of the field is predicted using the results of odometry. It is done by calculating the position of the landmarks on the captured image. In the analysis phase, the local search algorithms find the exact position of the landmarks on the image from which the best matching coordinates of the robot are determined using a likelihood function. The final coordinates of the robot are then obtained from the odometry sensor, using an integrated delay compensation and correction technique. Experimental results show that precise and delay-free results are achieved with a very low computational cost. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.