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Author Topic: How to track a robot's location indoor?  (Read 2913 times)

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Offline jykm88Topic starter

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How to track a robot's location indoor?
« on: October 12, 2013, 06:39:34 PM »
What are the ways to keep track of a robot's current position indoors? I think GPS can't be used indoors for accurate tracking right?

I'm talking about 1 inch accurate tracking.

Thanks in advance.

Offline unix_guru

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Re: How to track a robot's location indoor?
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2013, 07:40:42 PM »
There is an entire practice around this question.  SLAM or Simultaneous Location And Mapping (http://openslam.org ) is the practice of identifying where you are within an environment, and mapping it for future use.

That said, a lot relies on the sensors you are using.  One inch granularity was my goal as well, but I was only using Maxsonar sensors and infrared distance sensors.  You could get pretty good distance measurements by sample averaging, but unless the room was very small, and you could see both from and back or left and right walls simultaneously then you have to add odometer to your wheels.

Odometer in and of itself also poses problems.  Wheel slip, encoder ticks missed for various reasons, turning which induces more ticks on one side than the other....

From what I've read, you really need good laser range finders to map out your environment for that level of granularity.

I actually moved away from my one inch resolution goal.  My rover is 13 inches in length.  It is good enough to know where it is  within 1/4 of its length or roughly 3inches. 

Anyway, best of luck.


Offline hobbes

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Re: How to track a robot's location indoor?
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2013, 04:03:36 PM »
One way to do this would be to have a high definition camera in the room ( up high ). You would need a way to distinguish the robot from the rest of the environment for the Computer Vision to find the robot in the room; Perhaps the robot could be of a color that is not in the room or the robot is the only moving object in the room. You could even place a QR code on the robot or place a bright LED light on it.

You could calibrate buy placing the robot in multiple locations, have the camera pick them up and interpolate from there.

You can use OpenCV to capture images using a high definition web camera or you can try to get your hands on CanonSDK if you want to use a digital SLR camera.


 


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