The use of global positioning system (GPS) in outdoor localization is quite a common solution in large environments where no other reference is available and there are not so demanding positioning requirements. Of course, fine motion without the use of an expensive differential device is not an easy task, even now that available precision has been greatly improved as the military encoding has been removed. In this paper we present a localization algorithm based on Kalman filtering that tries to fuse information coming from an inexpensive single GPS with inertial data and map-based data. The algorithm is able to produce an estimated configuration for the robot that can be successfully fed back in a navigation system. Some experiments show difficulties and possible solutions of this sensor fusion problem.
In this paper, we present a system that allows visually impaired people to autonomously navigate in an unknown indoor and outdoor environment. The system, explicitly designed for low vision people, can be generalized to other users in an easy way. We assume that special landmarks are posed for helping the users in the localization of pre-defined paths. Our novel approach exploits the use of both the inertial sensors and the camera integrated into the smartphone as sensors. Such a navigation system can also provide direction estimates to the tracking system to the users. The success of out approach is proved both through experimental tests performed in controlled indoor environments and in real outdoor installations. A comparison with deep learning methods has been presented.
19 February 2015 in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
Distance-based network localization is known to have solution, in general, if the network is globally rigid. In this technical note we relax this condition with reference to unit disk graphs. To this end, shadow edges are introduced to model the fact that selected nodes are not able to sense each other. We provide a localization algorithm based on such edges and a necessary and sufficient localizability condition. We also investigate the relation between the proposed approach and trilateration, showing from both a theoretical and empirical perspective that shadow edge localization succeeds also when trilateration fails.
1 April 2017 in Computers and Electrical Engineering
This paper deals with a new approach to multi robot localization. An Interlaced extended Kalman filter is shown to be a good solution to the problem of estimating the pose of a team of robots with a fully decentralized algorithm. Moreover, it is feasible to dynamically "correct" the estimation autonomously evaluated by each single robot, updating this quantity anytime two robots randomly come across. The algorithm combines the robustness of a full state EKF with the simplicity of its interlaced implementation. It does not need global supervision, and allows a large flexibility in using exteroceptive sensors. The paper presents some simulations to show the feasibility of the approach considering a set of robots equipped with different combinations of sensors and with wireless communication devices able to support data exchange when they are sufficiently close
1 March 2018 in International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection