Design of an absolute location and position measuring system for a mobile robot

This paper focuses on a development of a sensor system measuring locations of a vehicle to localize a mobile robot while it tracks on the track (location sensor). Also it focuses on a system configuration identifying the vehicle’s orientation and distance from the object while it is stationary at certain station (position sensor). As for the location sensor, it consists of a set of sensors with a combined guiding and counting sensor, and an address-coded sensor to localize the vehicle, while moving on the rail. For the position sensor a PSD (Position Sensitive Device) sensor with photo-switches sensor to measure the offset and orientation of the vehicle at each station is introduced. Both sensor systems are integrated with a microprocessor as a data relay to the main computer controlling the vehicle. The location sensor system is developed and its performance for a mobile robot is verified by experiments. The position measuring system is proposed and is robust to the environmental variation. Moreover, the two kinds of sensor systems guarantee a low cost application and high reliability.