Multi-floor navigation method for mobile robot transportation based on StarGazer sensors in life science automation

In this paper, a new multi-floor navigating method is proposed for the intelligent mobile robot transportation in life science laboratories. The proposed method includes two technical solutions as follows: (a) a solution is presented to build a multi-floor map for the mobile robots based on the ceiling landmarks and the robot on-board StarGazer sensors. All the installed ceiling landmarks are given an unique HEX ID and the StarGazer sensors work as a HEX reader to measure the ceiling HEX IDs to calculate the indoor positions of the mobile robots. With this solution, the multi-floor map can be extended and revised conveniently by the laboratory personal for any sizes of laboratory environments and any types of mobile robots; (b) a new approach is made to recognize and understand the environments of the elevators in the life science laboratories for the mobile robot multi-floor transportation. In the approach, the Microsoft Kinect sensors are utilized to measure the physical features of the elevators. Two experiments are provided to validate the performance of the proposed multi-floor navigation method. The results show that the proposed method is effective for the mobile robot multi-floor transportation in laboratory environments.