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Robotic Follower System Using Bearing-Only Tracking with Directional Antennas

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Robot Intelligence Technology and Applications 2

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 274))

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a robotic follower system with the eventual goal of autonomous convoying to create end-to-end communication. The core of the system is a bearing-only tracking with directional antennas and an obstacle avoidance algorithm with sonar sensors. For bearing estimation with directional antennas, we employ a Weighted Centroid Algorithm (WCA), which is a method for active antenna tracking and Direction Of Arrival (DOA) estimation. We also discuss the use of sonar sensors that can detect objects, which could improve our robotic follower system in mobile robot navigation. Through extensive field experiments in different environments, we show feasibilities of our proposed system, allowing a follower robot to track a leader robot effectively in convoying fashion. We expect that our system can be applied in a variety of applications that need autonomous convoying.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Lab, Department of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Byung-Cheol Min & Eric T. Matson

  2. Department of Computer Engineering, Dongguk University, Seoul, 100-715, Republic of Korea

    Eric T. Matson

Authors
  1. Byung-Cheol Min
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  2. Eric T. Matson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Byung-Cheol Min .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Electrical Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Jong-Hwan Kim

  2. Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Eric T . Matson

  3. Civil and Environmental Engg., KAIST, Daejeon, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Hyun Myung

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand

    Peter Xu

  5. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Fakhri Karray

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Min, BC., Matson, E.T. (2014). Robotic Follower System Using Bearing-Only Tracking with Directional Antennas. In: Kim, JH., Matson, E., Myung, H., Xu, P., Karray, F. (eds) Robot Intelligence Technology and Applications 2. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 274. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05582-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05582-4_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05581-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05582-4

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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