FuSeOn: A low-cost portable multi sensor fusion research testbed for robotics

Abstract

Nowadays, the utilization of multiple sensors on every robotic platform is a reality due to their low cost, small size and light weight. Multi Sensor Fusion (MSF) algorithms are required to take advance of all the given measurements in a robust and complete manner. These high demanding developed algorithms need to be tested under real and challenging situations and environments. To the knowledge of the authors, none of the available datasets fulfills are fully suitable to be used for MSF applied to Robotics, due to the lack of multiple sensor measurements provided by light weight, small size and low cost sensors; due to their restricted motions (typically planar movements); or to their limited environmental conditions. The contributions of the paper are twofold. First, a low-cost portable and versatile testbed has been developed forMSF research with various types of sensors. Second, a group of datasets for MSF research for Robotics have been made public as a common framework for algorithm testing after a comparison with the existing databases in the state of the art, highlighting the differences and advantages of the one presented in this paper, that are: low-cost sensors for general use on Robotics, fully 3 dimensional movements (six degrees of freedom), as well as challenging indoor and outdoor small and large environments.