An enhanced CSLAM for multi-robot based on unscented kalman filter

This paper proposes an unscented Kalman filter (UKF) based coordinative, simultaneous localization and mapping (CSLAM) system, in which robots share common mapping information. The SLAM information obtained by a master robot is shared with slave robots, which estimate only their own localizations using comparatively simple sensors. The behavior of the slave robots depends on the reconstructed CSLAM using information transmitted by the master robot. The proposed process reduces the processing burden of the slave robots, which results in a reduction of the calculation time and the complexity of their hardware system. By comparing the proposed algorithm with some conventional methods in terms of system stability, the efficiency of the proposed method is verified.     

多机器人任意队形分布式控制研究

本文针对多智能体协作完成特定任务时难以在全自主控制的前提下协作形成任意队 形和队形向量不易确定的问题，通过由各智能体自主简单的确定自己的队形向量，从理论上 扩展基于队形向量的队形控制原理以生成任意队形，改进机器人的运动方式以提高收敛速度 ，提出一种快速收敛的机器人部队任意队形分布式控制算法．为了解决智能体机器人之间的 冲突问题，提出了一个通信协调模型．仿真实验和实际机器人实验均表明了算法的可行性和 有效性．     

Obstacle arrangement detection using multichannel ultrasonic sonar for indoor mobile robots

In the last few years, mobile robot systems that perform complicated tasks have been studied. To work in complicated environments, the robot has to avoid collisions with obstacles. Therefore the robot needs to detect the arrangement of any surrounding obstacles. We considered a simple distance estimation algorithm using ultrasonic sonar. Since the algorithm was able to estimate distance accurately, we also attempted stereo reception using two ultrasonic microphones. The stereo reception sonar was able to detect the direction of obstacles. In order to make precise measurements, we attempted to use the signal coherence of ultrasonic waves. In order to install a small system into mobile robots and to detect any surrounding obstacles, we designed a multichannel sonar signal processing system using a high-performance embedded microcontroller. This article describes our ideas for the distance estimation algorithm for ultrasonic sonar, and a design for a signal processing system using a high-performance microcontroller.     

Motion-based identification of multiple mobile robots using trajectory analysis in a well-configured environment with distributed vision sensors

Networked mobile robots are able to determine their poses (i.e., position and orientation) with the help of a well-configured environment with distributed sensors. Before localizing the mobile robots using distributed sensors, the environment has to have information on each of the robots?? prior knowledge. Consequently, if the environment does not have information on the prior knowledge of a certain mobile robot then it will not determine its current pose. To solve this restriction, as a preprocessing step for indoor localization, we propose a motion-based identification of multiple mobile robots using trajectory analysis. The proposed system identifies the robots by establishing the relation between their identities and their positions, which are estimated from their trajectories related to each of the paths generated as designated signs. The primary feature of the proposed system is the fact that networked mobile robots are quickly and simultaneously able to determine their poses in well-configured environments. Experimental results show that our proposed system simultaneously identifies multiple mobile robots, and approximately estimates each of their poses as an initial state for autonomous localization.     

快速收敛的机器人部队任意队形分布式控制算法

针对多智能体协作完成特定任务时难以在全自主控制的前提下协作形成任意队形和队形向量不易确定的问题 ,通过由各智能体自主简单的确定自己的队形向量 ,从理论上扩展基于队形向量的队形控制原理以生成任意队形 ,改进机器人的运动方式以提高收敛速度 ,提出一种快速收敛的机器人部队任意队形分布式控制算法 .仿真结果表明 ,该算法可以形成任意队形 ,比现有控制算法的收敛速度快 ,队形收敛所需的时间仅为现有算法的 10 %左右     

Reactive navigation in dynamic environment using a multisensorpredictor

A reactive navigation system for an autonomous mobile robot in unstructured dynamic environments is presented. The motion of moving obstacles is estimated for robot motion planning and obstacle avoidance. A multisensor-based obstacle predictor is utilized to obtain obstacle-motion information. Sensory data from a CCD camera and multiple ultrasonic range finders are combined to predict obstacle positions at the next sampling instant. A neural network, which is trained off-line, provides the desired prediction on-line in real time. The predicted obstacle configuration is employed by the proposed virtual force based navigation method to prevent collision with moving obstacles. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed navigation system in an environment with multiple mobile robots or moving objects. This system was implemented and tested on an experimental mobile robot at our laboratory. Navigation results in real environment are presented and analyzed.     

Hazardous area navigation with temporary beacons

A new area expansion algorithm for the localization scheme, using temporary beacons, is proposed in this paper. The effective area of the active beacons is limited by the strength of the ultrasonic signals in a noisy environment. When a mobile robot needs to move into a hazardous area or into an unstructured environment where the beacons with pre-specified position information are not available, the localization may solely rely on dead reckoning sensors such as encoders. To overcome the error accumulation by using dead-reckoning, a new scheme is developed, in this paper, in which the mobile robot carries a few temporary beacons which do not have any pre-stored position information. When the mobile robot encounters a dangerous or unstructured environment, it utilizes the temporary beacons to localize itself. An auto-calibration algorithm has been developed to provide the position information to the temporary beacons before they are used for the localization. With these temporary beacons and the auto-calibration algorithm, mobile robots can safely pass unstructured areas. The effectiveness of the temporary beacons and auto-calibration algorithm is verified through real experiments of mobile robot navigation.     

基于遗传算法的WSN移动信标定位及路径求取

针对无线传感器网络中使用移动信标定位问题,提出了基于遗传算法的无线传感器网络移动信标定位及路径求取方法。首先根据区域面积计算出三重覆盖所需的发射信标位置的个数,用遗传算法优化求取信标发射位置,再用流浪旅行商算法获取遍历发射位置点的最优路径,在遍历时基于加权质心算法对传感器节点定位。实验结果表明,该方法可对传感器节点进行高效定位。     

带扰动的多非完整移动机器人分布式有限时间一致性控制

论文研究多个非完整移动机器人在控制输入存在干扰时,有限时间一致性控制问题.利用坐标变换,将多移动机器人系统的一致性问题转化为非完整约束链式系统的一致性问题,在控制输入带有未知有界干扰的条件下,设计了一种分布式控制算法,并利用Lyapunov理论证明了该算法能够使移动机器人的各个状态在有限时间内达到一致.最后通过数值仿真验证了算法的有效性.     

Simultaneous Localization of a Mobile Robot and Multiple Sound Sources Using a Microphone Array

Sound source localization is an important function in robot audition. Most existing works perform sound source localization using static microphone arrays. This work proposes a framework that simultaneously localizes the mobile robot and multiple sound sources using a microphone array on the robot. First, an eigenstructure-based generalized cross-correlation method for estimating time delays between microphones under multi-source environments is described. Using the estimated time delays, a method to compute the farfield source directions as well as the speed of sound is proposed. In addition, the correctness of the sound speed estimate is utilized to eliminate spurious sources, which greatly enhances the robustness of sound source detection. The arrival angles of the detected sound sources are used as observations in a bearing-only simultaneous localization and mapping procedure. As the source signals are not persistent and there is no identification of the signal content, data association is unknown and it is solved using the FastSLAM algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Generalized measuring-worm algorithm: high-accuracy mapping and movement via cooperating swarm robots

Recently, many extensive studies have been conducted on robot control via self-positioning estimation techniques. In the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) method, which is one approach to self-positioning estimation, robots generally use both autonomous position information from internal sensors and observed information on external landmarks. SLAM can yield higher accuracy positioning estimations depending on the number of landmarks; however, this technique involves a degree of uncertainty and has a high computational cost, because it utilizes image processing to detect and recognize landmarks. To overcome this problem, we propose a state-of-the-art method called a generalized measuring-worm (GMW) algorithm for map creation and position estimation, which uses multiple cooperating robots that serve as moving landmarks for each other. This approach allows problems of uncertainty and computational cost to be overcome, because a robot must find only a simple two-dimensional marker rather than feature-point landmarks. In the GMW method, the robots are given a two-dimensional marker of known shape and size and use a front-positioned camera to determine the marker distance and direction. The robots use this information to estimate each other’s positions and to calibrate their movement. To evaluate the proposed method experimentally, we fabricated two real robots and observed their behavior in an indoor environment. The experimental results revealed that the distance measurement and control error could be reduced to less than 3 %.     

分布式视觉机器人导航中的定位算法研究

生物启发的无线复眼导航技术是新型的机器人导航方案,将分布在环境中的分布式智能代替了传统的集中式智能。蒙特卡洛定位是近来流行的机器人自主定位算法,将这种算法应用在分布式视觉传感器机器人的定位中,并针对多视觉传感器观测值的最优选择,提出了一种分布式的基于熵的观测量选择方法,目的是选择那些对提高定位精度更有效的观测信息,在保证定位精度的前提下,提高了定位的实时性和可靠性。仿真实验结果证明了这种算法的可行性。     

分布式视觉机器人导航中的定位算法研究

生物启发的无线复眼导航技术是新型的机器人导航方案,将分布在环境中的分布式智能代替了传统的集中式智能。蒙特卡洛定位是近来流行的机器人自主定位算法,将这种算法应用在分布式视觉传感器机器人的定位中,并针对多视觉传感器观测值的最优选择,提出了一种分布式的基于熵的观测量选择方法,目的是选择那些对提高定位精度更有效的观测信息,在保证定位精度的前提下,提高了定位的卖时性和可靠性。仿真实验结果证明了这种算法的可行性。     

Four-mobile-beacon assisted localization in three-dimensional wireless sensor networks

Localization is one of key technologies of wireless sensor networks, and the mobile beacon assisted localization method is promising. For the three-dimensional sensor networks, this paper proposes a four-mobile-beacon assisted weighted centroid localization method. The four beacons form a regular tetrahedron while traversing the region and broadcast packets including their positions simultaneously. The ordinary sensor nodes estimate their locations using weighted centroid method. It also presents Layered-Scan trajectory of mobile beacons which consists of several parallel layers of Scan. This method can localize all the sensor nodes with appropriate parameters. Two sets of simulations are performed using Matlab to compare this method with other methods and evaluate tradeoffs between localization performance and different parameters. Simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms weighted centroid and multilateration methods using single mobile beacon.     

基于声音的分布式多机器人相对定位

提出了一种基于声音的分布式多机器人相对定位方法.首先,每个机器人通过声源定位算法估计发声机器人在其局部坐标系下的坐标;然后,每个机器人（不含发声机器人）通过无线通信方式将发声机器人在其坐标系下的坐标广播给所有其他机器人,通过坐标变换每个机器人可计算出所有其他机器人在其坐标系下的坐标,从而实现分布式相对定位.理论推导及实验证明只要两个机器人先后发声,通过本文所提方法即可实现多机器人相对定位.室内外环境中采用6个自制小型移动机器人实验表明,所提方法在3米的范围内可实现16厘米的相对定位精度.     

A novel efficient algorithm for mobile robot localization

Being autonomous is one of the most important goals in mobile robots. One of the fundamental works to achieve this goal is giving the ability to a robot for finding its own correct position and orientation. Different methods have been introduced to solve this problem. In this paper, a novel method based on the harmony search (HS) algorithm for robot localization through scan matching is proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed method in comparison with a genetic algorithm-based approach has better accuracy and higher performance. Furthermore a new hybrid algorithm based on harmony search and differential evolution (DE) algorithms is proposed and evaluated on different benchmark functions. Finally the hybrid algorithm has been applied for mobile robot localization and it outperformed the HS-based approach.     

一类有序化多移动机器人群集运动控制系统

群集运动控制(flocking control)是一种新型的多移动机器人运动协调控制, 目前的研究多集中于无leader模式下群集运动控制器的设计. 为此, 本文阐述了一类多移动机器人有序化群集运动系统控制方案及其性能评价方法. 首先, 在前人的研究基础上, 本文介绍了基于Agent的有序化编队控制机制; 然后, 运用非完整约束下移动机器人的动力学原理, 设计了由Agent到移动机器人的控制转化方法; 并进一步提出了基于“最小稳定时间”的群集运动分析法, 可对有序化群集运动系统进行分析; 最后, 运用仿真实例, 描述了多移动机器人有序化群集运动的控制及分析过程. 实验结果验证了此控制方案的有效性.     

A Probabilistic Approach to Collaborative Multi-Robot Localization

This paper presents a statistical algorithm for collaborative mobile robot localization. Our approach uses a sample-based version of Markov localization, capable of localizing mobile robots in an any-time fashion. When teams of robots localize themselves in the same environment, probabilistic methods are employed to synchronize each robot's belief whenever one robot detects another. As a result, the robots localize themselves faster, maintain higher accuracy, and high-cost sensors are amortized across multiple robot platforms. The technique has been implemented and tested using two mobile robots equipped with cameras and laser range-finders for detecting other robots. The results, obtained with the real robots and in series of simulation runs, illustrate drastic improvements in localization speed and accuracy when compared to conventional single-robot localization. A further experiment demonstrates that under certain conditions, successful localization is only possible if teams of heterogeneous robots collaborate during localization.