Ultrasonic navigation for a wheeled nonholonomic vehicle

In this paper, we demonstrate a reliable and robust system for localization of mobile robots in indoors environments which are relatively consistent to a priori known maps. Through the use of an Extended Kalman Filter combining dead-reckoning, ultrasonic, and infrared sensor data, estimation of the position and orientation of the robot is achieved. Based on a thresholding approach, unexpected obstacles can be detected and their motion predicted. Experimental results from implementation on our mobile robot, Nomad-200, are also presented.