Localization of a high-speed mobile robot using global features

This paper proposes a new localization algorithm for a fast-moving mobile robot, which utilizes only one beacon and the global features of the differential-driving mobile robot. It takes a relatively long time to localize a mobile robot with active beacon sensors, since the distance to the beacon is measured by the freight time of the ultrasonic signal. When the mobile robot is moving slowly, the measurement time does not yield a high error. At a higher mobile robot speed, however, the localization error becomes too high to use for the mobile robot navigation. Therefore, in high-speed mobile robot operations, instead of using two or more active beacons for localization, this research used an active beacon and the global features of the mobile robot to localize the mobile robot. The global features of mobile robots are as follows: (1) The speed of the mobile robot does not change rapidly, and (2) The curvature of the mobile robot motion is instantaneously constant. This new approach resolves the high localization error caused by the speed of the mobile robot. The performance of the new localization algorithm has been verified in an experiment with a high-speed mobile robot.