iRobot Corporation
PARTICLE FILTERS AND WIFI ROBOT LOCALIZATION AND MAPPING

Abstract:

Robot localization or mapping can be provided without requiring the expense or complexity an "at-a-distance" sensor, such as a camera, a LIDAR sensor, or the like. Landmark features can be created or matched using motion sensor data, such as odometry or gyro data or the like, and adjacency sensor data. Despite the relative ambiguity of adjacency-sensor derived landmark features, a particle filter approach can be configured to use such information, instead of requiring "at-a-distance" information from a constant stream of visual images from a camera, such as for robot localization or mapping. Landmark sequence constraints or a Wi-Fi signal strength map can be used together with the particle filter approach.