Abstract
A robust position sensing system is proposed in this paper for a ubiquitous mobile robot which moves indoors as well as outdoors. The Differential GPS (DGPS) which has a position estimation error of less than 5 m is a general solution when the mobile robot is moving outdoor, while an active beacon system (ABS) with embedded ultrasonic sensors is reliable as an indoor positioning system. The switching from the outdoor to indoor or vice versa causes unstable measurements on account of the reference coordinates and algorithm changes. To minimize the switching time in the position estimation and to stabilize the measurement, a robust position sensing system is proposed. In the system, to minimize the switching delay, the door positions are stored and updated in a database. Using the database, the approaching status of the mobile robot from indoor to outdoor or vice versa has been checked and the switching conditions are prepared before the mobile robot actually moves out or moves into the door. The reliability and accuracy of the robust positioning system based on DGPS and ABS are verified and demonstrated through the real experiments using a mobile robot prepared for this research.
