Sensitivity-based data fusion for optical localization of a mobile robot

Acoustic-based techniques are the standard for localization and communication in underwater environments, but due to the challenges associated with this medium, it is becoming increasingly popular to find alternatives such as using optics. In our prior work we developed an LED-based Simultaneous Localization and Communication (SLAC) approach that used the bearing angles, needed for establishing optical line-of-sight for LED-based communication between two beacon nodes and a mobile robot, to triangulate and thereby localize the position of the robot. Our focus in this paper is on how to optimally fuse measurement data for optical localization in a network with multiple pairs of beacon nodes to obtain the target location. We propose the use of a sensitivity metric, designed to characterize the level of uncertainty in the position estimate with respect to the bearing angle error, to dynamically select a desired pair of beacon nodes. The proposed solution is evaluated with extensive simulation and experimentation, in a setting of three beacons nodes and one mobile node. Comparison with multiple alternative approaches demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed approach.