New Entropy-Based Adaptive Particle Filter for Mobile Robot Localization

Over the last decade, particle filters have been applied with great success to a variety of state estimation problem. The standard particle filter suffers poor efficiency during the estimation process, especially in the global localization and kidnapped problem. In this paper, we proposed a novel information entropy-based adaptive approach to improve the efficiency of particle filters by adapting the number of particles. The information entropy-based adaptive particle filter approaches use the information entropy to present the uncertainty of a mobile robot to the environment. By continuously obtaining the sensor information, the robot gradually reduces the uncertainty to the environment and, therefore, reduces the particle number for the estimation process. We derived the mathematic equation relating the information entropy with particle number. Extensive localization experiments using a mobile robot showed that our approach yielded drastic improvements and efficiency performance over a standard particle filter with fixed particles and over other adaptive approaches.     

A human–robot interface for mobile manipulator

This paper presents a remote manipulation method for mobile manipulator through operator’s gesture. In particular, a track mobile robot is equipped with a 4-DOF robot arm to grasp objects. Operator uses one hand to control both the motion of mobile robot and the posture of robot arm via scheme of gesture polysemy method which is put forward in this paper. A sensor called leap motion (LM), which can obtain the position and posture data of hand, is employed in this system. Two filters were employed to estimate the position and posture of human hand so as to reduce the inherent noise of the sensor. Kalman filter was used to estimate the position, and particle filter was used to estimate the orientation. The advantage of the proposed method is that it is feasible to control a mobile manipulator through just one hand using a LM sensor. The effectiveness of the proposed human–robot interface was verified in laboratory with a series of experiments. And the results indicate that the proposed human–robot interface is able to track the movements of operator’s hand with high accuracy. It is found that the system can be employed by a non-professional operator for robot teleoperation.     

Particle filter robot localisation through robust fusion of laser,WiFi, compass,and a network of external cameras

In this paper, we propose a multi-sensor fusion algorithm based on particle filters for mobile robot localisation in crowded environments. Our system is able to fuse the information provided by sensors placed on-board, and sensors external to the robot (off-board). We also propose a methodology for fast system deployment, map construction, and sensor calibration with a limited number of training samples. We validated our proposal experimentally with a laser range-finder, a WiFi card, a magnetic compass, and an external multi-camera network. We have carried out experiments that validate our deployment and calibration methodology. Moreover, we performed localisation experiments in controlled situations and real robot operation in social events. We obtained the best results from the fusion of all the sensors available: the precision and stability was sufficient for mobile robot localisation. No single sensor is reliable in every situation, but nevertheless our algorithm works with any subset of sensors: if a sensor is not available, the performance just degrades gracefully.     

Two-handed gesture recognition and fusion with speech to command a robot

Assistance is currently a pivotal research area in robotics, with huge societal potential. Since assistant robots directly interact with people, finding natural and easy-to-use user interfaces is of fundamental importance. This paper describes a flexible multimodal interface based on speech and gesture modalities in order to control our mobile robot named Jido. The vision system uses a stereo head mounted on a pan-tilt unit and a bank of collaborative particle filters devoted to the upper human body extremities to track and recognize pointing/symbolic mono but also bi-manual gestures. Such framework constitutes our first contribution, as it is shown, to give proper handling of natural artifacts (self-occlusion, camera out of view field, hand deformation) when performing 3D gestures using one or the other hand even both. A speech recognition and understanding system based on the Julius engine is also developed and embedded in order to process deictic and anaphoric utterances. The second contribution deals with a probabilistic and multi-hypothesis interpreter framework to fuse results from speech and gesture components. Such interpreter is shown to improve the classification rates of multimodal commands compared to using either modality alone. Finally, we report on successful live experiments in human-centered settings. Results are reported in the context of an interactive manipulation task, where users specify local motion commands to Jido and perform safe object exchanges.     

Dynamic Modeling of a Class of Continuum Manipulators in Fixed Orientation

A novel simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technique based on independent particle filters for landmark mapping and localization for a mobile robot based on a high-frequency (HF)-band radio-frequency identification (RFID) system is proposed in this paper. SLAM is a technique for performing self-localization and map building simultaneously. FastSLAM is a standard landmark-based SLAM method. RFID is a robust identification system with ID tags and readers over wireless communication; further, it is rarely affected by obstacles in the robot area or by lighting conditions. Therefore, RFID is useful for self-localization and mapping for a mobile robot with a reasonable accuracy and sufficient robustness. In this study, multiple HF-band RFID readers are embedded in the bottom of an omnidirectional vehicle, and a large number of tags are installed on the floor. The HF-band RFID tags are used as the landmarks of the environment. We found that FastSLAM is not appropriate for this condition for two reasons. First, the tag detection of the HF-band RFID system does not follow the standard Gaussian distribution, which FastSLAM is supposed to have. Second, FastSLAM does not have a sufficient scalability, which causes its failure to handle a large number of landmarks. Therefore, we propose a novel SLAM method with two independent particle filters to solve these problems. The first particle filter is for self-localization based on Monte Carlo localization. The second particle filter is for landmark mapping. The particle filters are nonparametric so that it can handle the non-Gaussian distribution of the landmark detection. The separation of localization and landmark mapping reduces the computational cost significantly. The proposed method is evaluated in simulated and real environments. The experimental results show that the proposed method has more precise localization and mapping and a lower computational cost than FastSLAM.     

基于粒子群优化的粒子滤波定位方法

为了实现移动机器人精确高效的自定位,提出了基于粒子群优化的粒子滤波定位方法.文章分析了常规粒子滤波定位方法存在的不足之处.将最新观测值融合到采样过程中,并利用粒子群优化算法提高了常规粒子滤波器的预估性能.接下来,建立了系统的概率运动模型和感知模型,并利用粒子群优化粒子滤波方法解决了移动机器人的自定位问题.粒子群优化算法的优化结果使得采样集向后验概率密度分布取值较大的区域运动,从而克服了粒子贫乏问题并且显著地降低了精确定位所需的粒子数.仿真实验表明该算法的有效性.     

基于粒子滤波的欠驱动移动机器人多目标点跟踪控制

针对欠驱动移动机器人的多目标点跟踪问题,提出了一种基于粒子滤波的高精度跟踪控制方法;具体地,在考虑移动机器人采样噪声的情况下,首先利用粒子滤波对移动机器人的位置信息进行处理,得到精准可靠的移动机器人状态信息;在此基础上,根据欠驱动移动机器人的运动学模型以及目标点的分布状况,设计基于反馈控制的多目标点跟踪控制方法;相对于传统的欠驱动移动机器人目标点跟踪控制算法,改进了该控制方法中增益参数的约束条件,有效避免了移动机器人在接近目标点时产生的奇异现象,有效提高了移动机器人对目标点的跟踪精度;此外,分析了该目标点跟踪控制系统的稳定性,并通过数值仿真验证了所提方法的可行性与有效性.     

Active Visual Perception for Mobile Robot Localization

Localization is a key issue for a mobile robot, in particular in environments where a globally accurate positioning system, such as GPS, is not available. In these environments, accurate and efficient robot localization is not a trivial task, as an increase in accuracy usually leads to an impoverishment in efficiency and viceversa. Active perception appears as an appealing way to improve the localization process by increasing the richness of the information acquired from the environment. In this paper, we present an active perception strategy for a mobile robot provided with a visual sensor mounted on a pan-tilt mechanism. The visual sensor has a limited field of view, so the goal of the active perception strategy is to use the pan-tilt unit to direct the sensor to informative parts of the environment. To achieve this goal, we use a topological map of the environment and a Bayesian non-parametric estimation of robot position based on a particle filter. We slightly modify the regular implementation of this filter by including an additional step that selects the best perceptual action using Monte Carlo estimations. We understand the best perceptual action as the one that produces the greatest reduction in uncertainty about the robot position. We also consider in our optimization function a cost term that favors efficient perceptual actions. Previous works have proposed active perception strategies for robot localization, but mainly in the context of range sensors, grid representations of the environment, and parametric techniques, such as the extended Kalman filter. Accordingly, the main contributions of this work are: i) Development of a sound strategy for active selection of perceptual actions in the context of a visual sensor and a topological map; ii) Real time operation using a modified version of the particle filter and Monte Carlo based estimations; iii) Implementation and testing of these ideas using simulations and a real case scenario. Our results indicate that, in terms of accuracy of robot localization, the proposed approach decreases mean average error and standard deviation with respect to a passive perception scheme. Furthermore, in terms of efficiency, the active scheme is able to operate in real time without adding a relevant overhead to the regular robot operation.     

A distributed particle-PHD filter using arithmetic-average fusion of Gaussian mixture parameters

We propose a particle-based distributed PHD filter for tracking the states of an unknown, time-varying number of targets. To reduce communication, the local PHD filters at neighboring sensors communicate Gaussian mixture (GM) parameters. In contrast to most existing distributed PHD filters, our filter employs an “arithmetic average” fusion. For particles–GM conversion, we use a method that avoids particle clustering and enables a significance-based pruning of the GM components. For GM–particles conversion, we develop an importance sampling based method that enables a parallelization of filtering and dissemination/fusion operations. The resulting distributed PHD filtering framework is able to integrate both particle-based and GM-based local PHD filters. Simulations demonstrate the excellent performance and small communication and computation requirements of our filter.     

无线传感器网络环境下基于粒子滤波的移动机器人SLAM算法

定位问题是移动机器人研究领域中最基本的问题,在Bayes的框架下研究了机器人与无线传感器网络(WSN)组成系统中的同时建图与定位问题(SLAM).针对该系统中只存在距离测量信息可用的情况提出了一种基于粒子滤波的SLAM算法.该方法将机器人状态和节点位置估计设置为一组全局估计粒子,通过对粒子及其权重的更新来计算整个系统的状态.算法将WSN节点的位置估计在机器人的路径上分解为相互独立的估计,从而将全局粒子的计算转化为使用一个机器人状态滤波器和对应于每个机器人粒子的节点位置滤波器进行计算.针对观测信息低维的特点,设计了处理低维观测信息的方法,使得观测信息可以在滤波阶段得到合理利用.并且详细介绍了提出的SLAM算法原理和计算过程,并通过仿真实验证明了算法的有效性和实用性.     

Computationally efficient solutions for tracking people with a mobile robot: an experimental evaluation of Bayesian filters

Modern service robots will soon become an essential part of modern society. As they have to move and act in human environments, it is essential for them to be provided with a fast and reliable tracking system that localizes people in the neighborhood. It is therefore important to select the most appropriate filter to estimate the position of these persons. This paper presents three efficient implementations of multisensor-human tracking based on different Bayesian estimators: Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) and Sampling Importance Resampling (SIR) particle filter. The system implemented on a mobile robot is explained, introducing the methods used to detect and estimate the position of multiple people. Then, the solutions based on the three filters are discussed in detail. Several real experiments are conducted to evaluate their performance, which is compared in terms of accuracy, robustness and execution time of the estimation. The results show that a solution based on the UKF can perform as good as particle filters and can be often a better choice when computational efficiency is a key issue.     

基于粒子滤波器的移动机器人定位和地图创建研究进展

首先,对粒子滤波器的原理和研究进展进行了综述．然后,介绍了基于粒子滤波器的移动机器人定位研究进展．其次,给出了粒子滤波器在移动机器人地图创建领域的最新成果．最后,对粒子滤波器在移动机器人研究领域的未来发展方向进行了展望．     

Simultaneous localization of multiple unknown CSMA-based wireless sensor network nodes using a mobile robot with a directional antenna

We use a single mobile robot equipped with a directional antenna to simultaneously localize unknown carrier sensing multiple access (CSMA)-based wireless sensor network nodes. We assume the robot can only sense radio transmissions at the physical layer. The robot does not know network configuration such as size and protocol. We formulate this new localization problem and propose a particle filter-based localization approach. We combine a CSMA model and a directional antenna model using multiple particle filters. The CSMA model provides network configuration data while the directional antenna model provides inputs for particle filters to update. Based on the particle distribution, we propose a robot motion planning algorithm that assists the robot to efficiently traverse the field to search radio source. The final localization scheme consists of two algorithms: a sensing algorithms that runs in O(n) time for n particles and a motion planning algorithm that runs in O(nl) time for l radio sources. We have implemented the algorithm, and the results show that the algorithms are capable of localizing unknown networked radio sources effectively and robustly.     

基于仿生算法改进粒子滤波的SLAM算法精度预测

为解决传统粒子滤波算法重采样时产生的样本退化及样本贫乏带来的机器人定位与建图精度下降问题,提出一种基于改进仿生算法的粒子滤波.该算法将粒子最新时刻的观测与状态信息引入亮度公式,并将萤火虫的优胜劣汰和位置更新机制融入粒子滤波算法,以提高粒子的滤波能力.为保证算法的收敛速度和预测精度,在萤火虫位置更新过程中引入自适应调整步长进行即时修正;基于标准粒子滤波重采样的缺陷,采取分步重采样策略,通过偏差修正指数加权算法制定高效的舍小保大方案,并合理使用剩余大权值粒子完成粒子的复制和添加.仿真验证表明,所提出的改进算法可以明显提高传统粒子滤波的预测精度,且应用到基于移动机器人运动模型的定位与建图时可保持较高的定位精度和较好的稳定性.     

一种鲁棒高效的移动机器人定位方法

摘要利用基于自适应粒子滤波与地图匹配方法实现了机器人的自定位. 提出了一种采用距离相似性度量以及几何相似性度量的二次更新方法，对常规的基于激光测距仪的粒子滤波定位方法进行了改进，既增强了系统的鲁棒性，又提高了系统的计算效率. 仿真结果表明，移动机器人利用该定位方法可以在室内环境中利用自然特征进行鲁棒高效的自定位.     

基于引力场优化的Unscented FastSLAM2.0算法

为了改进Unscented Fast SLAM2.0算法重采样过程中的"粒子退化"和"粒子贫化"问题,本文提出了一种基于引力场优化的Unscented Fast SLAM2.0算法.首先采用Unscented粒子滤波器替代扩展卡尔曼滤波估计移动机器人路径后验概率,然后采用扩展卡尔曼滤波器对环境进行估计更新,最后用引力场优化思想优化重采样过程:在重采样中每个采样粒子近似成宇宙灰尘,通过引力场的移动因子产生作用驱动粒子集更快朝着真实的机器人位姿状态逼近,改善粒子退化问题:通过自转因子的自转作用,避免粒子过分集中,保障了粒子多样性.实验结果表明了该算法的有效性.     

Sensor Planning for Mobile Robot Localization---A Hierarchical Approach Using a Bayesian Network and a Particle Filter

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical approach to solving sensor planning for the global localization of a mobile robot. Our system consists of two subsystems: a lower layer and a higher layer. The lower layer uses a particle filter to evaluate the posterior probability of the localization. When the particles converge into clusters, the higher layer starts particle clustering and sensor planning to generate an optimal sensing action sequence for the localization. The higher layer uses a Bayesian network for probabilistic inference. The sensor planning takes into account both localization belief and sensing cost. We conducted simulations and actual robot experiments to validate our proposed approach.     

新的室内移动机器人自定位方法

针对现有室内移动机器人自定位方法中存在的定位精度不高,随时间积累定位误差增大,复杂室内环境下信号存在多径效应和非视距效应等问题,提出了一种基于蒙特卡罗定位(MCL)的新的移动机器人自定位方法。首先,通过分析基于无线射频识别(RFID)技术的移动机器人自定位系统,建立机器人运动模型;然后,通过分析基于接收信号强度指示(RSSI)的移动机器人自定位系统,提出机器人移动过程的观测模型;最后,针对粒子滤波定位执行效率不高的问题,提出粒子剔除策略和依据粒子方位赋予粒子权值策略,提高系统的定位精度和执行效率。仿真实验表明,机器人在移动过程中的自定位误差在X轴和Y轴方向上为3 cm,传统定位算法误差为6cm,新算法定位精度提高近1倍,且算法具有很好的鲁棒性。     

多传感器融合改进的机器人定位决策

在复杂的不确定环境里,采用单一传感器对机器人进行定位时精度较低,并且易受干扰,可靠性较差。针对这一问题在粒子滤波器移动机器人SLAM算法的基础上,利用多传感器融合对算法进行改进,将观测信息进行特征级融合,充分利用各种传感器采集的冗余信息,并将融合后的观测信息分别用来估计机器人路径和环境特征的后验概率分布。仿真试验表明,改进后的算法在SLAM定位精度及可靠性上都有较大的提高,证明了该种方法的可行性。     

基于粒子滤波器的移动机器人自定位方法研究

首先,对粒子滤波器的原理进行了简要阐述。然后详细描述了基于粒子滤波器的移动机器人自定位算法——蒙特卡洛定位算法。在ROS(Robot Operating System)平台上对该算法进行了仿真实验并分析了其性能。最后,对蒙特卡洛粒子滤波定位方法用于移动机器人定位进行了总结。结果表明,MCL(蒙特卡洛)算法是一种精确鲁棒的移动机器人概率定位方法,可对解决移动机器人的定位问题提供有意义的参考。提出的机器人自定位方法为机器人在Robocup竞赛中自主执行各种作业提供定位支持,已在2013年中国机器人大赛获奖。