Robot@factory: Localization method based on map-matching and Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper presents a novel localization method for small mobile robots. The proposed technique is especially designed for the Robot@Factory which is a new robotic competition presented in Lisbon 2011. The real-time localization technique resorts to low-cost infra-red sensors, a map-matching method and an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to create a pose tracking system that is well-behaved. The sensor information is continuously updated in time and space through the expected motion of the robot. Then, the information is incorporated into the map-matching optimization in order to increase the amount of sensor information that is available at each moment. In addition, a particle filter based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) relocates the robot when the map-matching error is high. Meaning that the map-matching is unreliable and robot is lost. The experiments conducted in this paper prove the ability and accuracy of the presented technique to localize small mobile robots for this competition. Therefore, extensive results show that the proposed method have an interesting localization capability for robots equipped with a limited amount of sensors.