Mobile robot guidance in a structured environment

In this paper, an approach to guide mobile robot by reading visual communication signboards, destined to human-operators in a structured environment, is presented. The procedure is based on a joint use of a "shirt" of 6 infrared sensors and a color vision system, mounted on the mobile robot RL11. The data from both heterogeneous sensory systems are used on purpose to achieve reduction of ambiguities in the robot\´s motion guiding, and to increase the performance of the visual perception and recognition. The proposed approach of multi-sensor guidance allows the robot to move autonomously at a required distance from the walls and to reach an exact position before the implementation of a maintenance procedure with a target.