Open-source Localization Device for Indoor Mobile Robots

Determining own location in indoor environment forms the basis for the majority of tasks performed by mobile robots. Various approaches to this problem have been proposed over the last few decades, differing in the type of perceived data. The most reliable and accurate methods are based on detection of artificial markers placed in the environment. Surprisingly there are very few products available on the market, which would offer the functionality of determining mobile robot's position using artificial markers. Therefore we decided to design and build an affordable, robust and extensible localization device, which could be used in various robotics applications. The created device uses an ARM-based microcomputer and a dedicated camera to autonomously capture and process images of the environment in order to calculate its location. It is resistant to changing light conditions and offers the performance of more than 30 frames per second with average positioning error of less than 5cm. In this paper we present details concerning the hardware and software architecture of the device together with experimental results. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.