Active navigation landmarks for a service robot in a home environment

This paper proposes a physical user interface for a user to teach a robot to navigate a home environment. The user places small devices containing infrared based communication functionality as landmarks in the environment. The robot follows these landmarks to navigate to a goal landmark. Active landmarks communicate with each other to map their spatial relationships. Our method allows the user to start using the system immediately after placing the landmarks without installing any global position sensing system or prior mapping by the robot.