Accurate estimation of environment parameters from ultrasonic data

This paper describes a robust and accurate ultrasonic sensing system for a mobile robot. The system continuously updates a local map of the environment in which obstacles are represented by straight lines or points in a robot centered coordinate frame. The presented algorithms use a Kalman filter for the reduction of the noise in the ultrasonic data and use a systematical error correction (‘bundle correction’) to reduce the uncertainty in obstacle direction. Experiments are carried out in simulation and with a real mobile robot system. Results show that the accuracy with which line parameters can be estimated is in the order of 1 degree for the orientation and about 2 cm for the position. The effect of the bundle correction is significant and maximal when the robot approaches walls under a small angle.