Simultaneous localization and odometry calibration for mobile robot

This paper presents both the theory and the first experimental results of a new method which allows simultaneously estimating of the robot configuration and the odometry error (both systematic and non-systematic) during the mobile robot navigation. The estimation of the non-systematic components is carried out through an augmented Kalman filter which estimates a state containing the robot configuration and the parameters characterizing the systematic component of the odometry error. It uses encoder readings as inputs and the readings from a laser range finder as observations. The estimation of the non-systematic component is carried out through another Kalman filter where the observations are obtained by two subsequent robot configurations provided by the previous augmented Kalman filter.