Hardware-assisted direction estimation for mobile robot target tracking applications

This paper addresses design and implementation issues for the directional sensing of electromagnetic waves, aiming to provide an efficient solution to mobile robot target tracking for various applications. What is the most important aspect from the practical point of view is how to realize accurate measurements of the bearing to the transponder(s). For the purpose, a novel direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation model is proposed using a minimum number of antennas. Another focus lies in the implementation of an in-house DoA detector prototype considering the simplicity and generality of hardware configurations. This paper explains details of a purpose-built, cost-efficient solution ranging from the estimation model design to its hardware implementation suitable for autonomous robot navigation. Experimental results show that the proposed method for DoA estimation and its hardware prototype can be considered quite satisfactory in a normal office environment.