Determining the position of a robot using a single calibration object

A procedure for determining the position uniquely, of a mobile robot in a three-dimensional space is presented. The method consists of viewing a single sphere with horizontal and vertical calibration great circles and computing distance and elevation and azimuth angles with respect to the sphere. The method is simple and provides good results as long as the sphere is projected onto a large portion of the image plane. Results using simulated and actual data are presented.