Title: Rigidity guided localisation for mobile robotic sensor networks

Authors: Changhua Wu, Ying Zhang, Weihua Sheng, Saroja Kanchi

Addresses: Department of Computer Science at Kettering University, Flint, MI 48504, USA. ' Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA. ' School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA. ' Department of Computer Science at Kettering University, Flint, MI 48504, USA

Abstract: This paper introduces a rigidity-guided localisation approach for mobile robotic sensor networks. The localisation uses a distance graph composed of both the robot-to-robot ranging data and the motion trajectories from robot odometry. The motion of a robot depends on the result of the rigidity test of its local distance graph: if the graph is not uniquely localisable, the robot moves around in its neighbourhood to collect at least two extra ranging data with each of its neighbours in order to make the extended graph uniquely localisable. Locally unique maps are then merged into a globally consistent map.

Keywords: robot localisation; graph-rigidity networks; pebble game; multi-dimensional scaling; ubiquitous computing; mobile sensors; mobile robots; sensor networks; motion trajectory; robot odometry; robot motion; mapping; robot navigation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2010.034324

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2010 Vol.6 No.2, pp.114 - 128

Published online: 31 Jul 2010 *

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