Article Abstract

	Title:	Biomimetic application of desert ant visual navigation for mobile robot docking with weighted landmarks
	Author:	Ran Wei, David Austin, Robert Mahony
	Address:	Department of Engineering, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia. ' Robotic Systems Lab, RSISE, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia National ICT Australia, Locked Bag 8001, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. ' Department of Engineering, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia
	Journal:	International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications 2005 - Vol. 1, No.1/2  pp. 174 - 190
	Abstract:	Previous work has shown that honeybees use a snapshot model to determine a local vector to find their way home. A simpler, average landmark vector model has since been proposed for biologically-inspired mobile robot homing. Previously, the authors have extended the model to address the problem of docking a unicycle-like vehicle smoothly using bearing-only information and without reconstructing the pose of the vehicle (Wei et al., 2003, 2004). Here, we extend further to consider weighted landmarks, allowing greater control over the shape of the trajectory that the robot will follow. This approach permits docking from a wider range of initial poses, while respecting the kinematic constraints of the robot. The proposed control method has been implemented on the Nomadic Technologies XR4000 robot at ANU using visual landmarks. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate the desired docking behaviour from a broad range of initial conditions.
	Keywords:	mobile robot docking; biomimetics; desert ants; panoramic vision; visual landmarks; mobile robot homing; mobile robots; biorobotics; biomechatronics; average landmark vector; weighted landmarks; robot trajectory; robot control; trajectory control; robot pose; kinematic constraints; robot kinematics; visual navigation; robot navigation; robot vision.
	DOI:	10.1504/IJISTA.2005.007314
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