A Quadcopter and Mobile Robot Cooperative Task Using Visual Tags Based on Augmented Reality ROS Package

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to provide a simple tutorial on how to use a virtual reality tag (VR-TAG) tool and a Robot Operating System–compatible simulated multirotor vehicle to achieve the position of a small mobile ground robot, making possible the creation of a cooperative schema among them. The great novelty of the proposed architecture is that the ground robots do not have any onboard odometry, and all the position information is provided by the multirotor using a camera and the VR-TAGs to evaluate it. This kind of architecture poses value for real-world cooperative multiple robot research, in which the cost of constructing a large number of small robots makes practical applications inviable. In such cases, simple robots with minimal control hardware and sensors are a good alternative, and offboard positioning and control of these robots can be effective.