Autonomous navigation of mobile robot based on DGPS/INS sensor fusion by EKF in semi-outdoor structured environment

Although GPS/DGPS become the dominant localization solution in the outdoor environment, it needs assistant sensors or algorithms for the covering the area not to get the position information from GPS. Especially, in the robot navigation, the sensor fusion algorithm is needed. In addition, it is hard to get the position information at the area surrounded the high buildings such as the downtown because GPS signals is so feeble. Therefore, this paper illustrates an efficient method for the outdoor localization incorporating DGPS, Encoder, and IMU sensor based on EKF. To show the localization performances of the proposed fusion algorithm, we have implemented the proposed algorithm and applied the advertising robot platform which is operating well during 80 days in the real semi-outdoor structured environment. The proposed sensor fusion algorithm and the experimental results showed the feasibility of our novel sensor fusion algorithm.