Fuzzy approach for mobile robot positioning

This paper presents a fuzzy approach for positioning an iRobot B21r mobile robot in an indoor environment. A novel error model for the laser rangefinder is built with consideration of the detection distance and the detection angle, and a new concept, the virtual angular point, is introduced as the feature for positioning the mobile robot in this paper. Such points as break points, real angular points, and virtual angular points are employed for positioning a mobile robot. Positions obtained by two arbitrary pairs of feature points are fused together by the weighted mean technique, and the weights are determined by the fuzzy accuracy of the feature points. Experimental study has been carried out to verify the effectiveness of the algorithms.