Multi-robot cooperative localization through collaborative visual object tracking

Abstract

In this paper we present an approach for a team of robots to cooperatively improve their self localization through collaboratively tracking a moving object. At first, we use a Bayes net model to describe the multi-robot self localization and object tracking problem. Then, by exploring the independencies between different parts of the joint state space of the complex system, we show how the posterior estimation of the joint state can be factorized and the moving object can serve as a bridge for information exchange between the robots for realizing cooperative localization. Based on this, a particle filtering method for the joint state estimation problem is proposed. And, finally, in order to improve computational efficiency and achieve real-time implementation, we present a method for decoupling and distributing the joint state estimation onto different robots. The approach has been implemented on our four-legged AIBO robots and tested through different scenarios in RoboCup domain showing that the performance of localization can indeed be improved significantly. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.