Augmenting GPS with geolocated fiducials to improve accuracy for mobile robot applications

Abstract

In recent decades Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have become a ubiquitous tool to support navigation. Traditional GPS has an error in the order of 10-15 m, which is adequate for many applications (e.g., vehicle navigation) but for many robotics applications lacks required accuracy. In this paper we describe a technique, FAGPS (Fiducial Augmented Global Positioning System) to periodically use fiducial markers to lower the GPS drift, and hence for a small time-period have a more accurate GPS determination. We describe results from simulations and from field testing in open-sky environments where horizontal GPS accuracy was improved from a twice the distance root mean square (2DRMS) error of 5.5 m to 2.99 m for a period of up-to 30 min.