The First-Location Problem

Abstract

Mobile robot localization consists in the problem of determining the relative transformation between the reference frame attached to the robot R and a base reference frame W (figure 5.1). In two dimensions this relative transformation is given by a translation in the horizontal plane (motion plane) and a rotation around a vertical axis:

$$t_{WR} = Trans(x_{WR} ,y_{WR} )Rot(Z,\varphi _{WR} )$$

(1)

Typically, this relative transformation is obtained by matching the current observations gathered by the exteroceptive sensors mounted on the robot, with model features stored in a database representing a priori knowledge about the navigation environment.

“You can’t get where you want to go if you don’t know where you are.”

Anonymous