Utilization of distributed cameras in environment for actions of mobile manipulator

A mobile manipulator will be a practical robot in our daily life environment. In order for the robot to move around in the environment accurate localization is sometimes necessary. Distributed cameras can be used for such a purpose. Cameras are embedded in the environment and emit the image data it gets. When the robot approaches the camera, it receives the image data including its own figure. Through the model matching or the motion analysis of the captured image, the robot estimates the relative position to the camera location. Combining the relative position data with the absolute location data of the camera, the robot can localize itself more accurately than conventional dead reckoning system. This paper describes one method to localize the robot using the distributed camera, and the basic experimental results.