This paper describes the development of a cost-effective yet precise indoor robot navigation system composed of a custom robot controller board and an indoor positioning system. First, the proposed robot controller board has been specially designed for emerging IoT-based robot applications and is capable of driving two 6-Amp motor channels. The controller board also embeds an on-board micro-controller with WIFI connectivity, enabling robot-to-server communications for IoT applications. Then, working together with the robot controller board, the proposed positioning system detects the robot's location using a down-looking webcam and uses the robot's position on the webcam images to estimate the real-world position of the robot in the environment. The positioning system can then send commands via WIFI to the robot in order to steer it to any arbitrary location in the environment. Our experiments show that the proposed system reaches a navigation error smaller or equal to 0.125 meters while being more than two orders of magnitude more cost-effective compared to off-the-shelve motion capture (MOCAP) positioning systems.
Naver Labs Europe；Universitat Jaume I de Castello（海梅一世大学）
We address the indoor localization problem, where the goal is to predict user's trajectory from the data collected by their smartphone, using inertial sensors such as accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer, as well as other environment and network sensors such as barometer and WiFi. Our system implements a deep learning based pedestrian dead reckoning (deep PDR) model that provides a high-rate estimation of the relative position of the user. Using Kalman Filter, we correct the PDR's drift using WiFi that provides a prediction of the user's absolute position each time a WiFi scan is received…
Determining assets position with high accuracy and scalability is one of the most investigated technology on the market. The accuracy provided by satellites-based positioning systems (i.e., GLONASS or Galileo) is not always sufficient when a decimeter-level accuracy is required or when there is the need of localising entities that operate inside indoor environments. Scalability is also a recurrent problem when dealing with indoor positioning systems. This paper presents an innovative UWB Indoor GPS-Like local positioning system able to tracks any number of assets without decreasing measurement…
This paper presents a robust and accurate positioning system that adapts its behavior to the surrounding environment, mimicking the capability of the visual brain to filtering out clutter and focusing attention on activity and relevant information. Especially in indoor environments, which are characterized by harsh multipath propagation, robust positioning is still hard to achieve under the constraint of reasonable infrastructural needs. In such environments it is essential to separate relevant from irrelevant information and attain an appropriate uncertainty model for measurements that are us…
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）；NVIDIA Corp.（英伟达公司）
Motion capture is a widely-used technology in robotics research thanks to its precise posi tional measurements with real-time performance. This paper presents ViconMAVLink, a cross-platform open-source software tool that provides indoor positioning services to networked robots. ViconMAVLink converts Vicon motion capture data into proper pose and motion data formats and send localization information to robots using the MAVLink protocol. The software is a convenient tool for mobile robotics researchers to conduct experiments in a controlled indoor environment.
Western Sydney University（西悉尼大学）；Manchester Metropolitan University（曼彻斯特城市大学）
Humans and robots working together in an environment to enhance human performance is the aim of Industry 5.0. Although significant progress in outdoor positioning has been seen, indoor positioning remains a challenge. In this paper, we introduce a new research concept by exploiting the potential of indoor positioning for Industry 5.0. We use Wi-Fi Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) with trilateration using cheap and easily available ESP32 Arduino boards for positioning as well as sending effective route signals to a human and a robot working in a simulated-indoor factory environment in …
Key Laboratory of Aerospace Information Security and Trusted Computing, Ministry of Education, China（中国教育部航空航天信息安全与可信计算重点实验室）；School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Wuhan University, China（中国武汉大学网络空间安全学院）
Multi-source fusion positioning is one of the technical frameworks for obtaining sufficient indoor positioning accuracy. In order to evaluate the effect of multi-source fusion positioning, it is necessary to establish a fusion error model. In this paper, we first use the least squares method to fuse the radio fingerprint and the PDR positioning, and then apply the variance propagation laws to calculate the error distribution of indoor multi-source localization methods. Based on the fusion error model, we developed an indoor positioning simulation system. The system can give a better positionin…
Nara Institute of Science and Technology（奈良先端科学技术大学院大学）；Hitachi Zosen Corporation（日立造船株式会社）
In an incineration plant, remote operation from a centralized control room is now possible, but inspection and cleaning of equipment still require a worker to visit the site. When the plant owner reduces the number of workers due to operation costs, it will be standard for a single worker to visit the site. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the location of workers in real-time to detect unexpected human accidents quickly. Conventional methods use radio waves, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but there is little demand for communication equipment in the incineration plant. However, there is not…
Indoor Positioning Based on Active Radar Sensing and Passive Reflectors: Reflector Placement Optimization
Institute of Signal Processing and System Theory, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany（信号处理与系统理论研究所，斯图加特大学，斯图加特，德国）；Munich Research Center, Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GmbH, Munich, Germany（慕尼黑研究中心，华为技术杜塞尔多夫有限公司，慕尼黑，德国）
State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Power Safety Monitoring Technology and Equipment, China Nuclear Power Engineering Co.,Ltd（国家核电安全监控技术与装备重点实验室，中国核电工程有限公司）；School of Automation Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology（华南理工大学自动化科学与工程学院）；South-tech Information Technology Co.,LTD（南方科技信息技术有限公司）
Visible light positioning (VLP) is widely believed to be a cost-effective answer to the growing demanded for robot indoor positioning. Considering that some extreme environments require robot to be equipped with a precise and radiation-resistance indoor positioning system for doing difficult work, a novel VLP system with high accuracy is proposed to realize the long-playing inspection and intervention under radiation environment. The proposed system with sufficient radiation-tolerance is critical for operational inspection, maintenance and intervention tasks in nuclear facilities. Firstly, we …
University of Technology Sydney（悉尼科技大学）；FX Palo Alto Laboratory Inc.（FX帕洛阿尔托实验室公司）
In this paper, we propose a real-time classification scheme to cope with noisy Radio Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurements utilized in indoor positioning systems. RSSI values are often converted to distances for position estimation. However due to multipathing and shadowing effects, finding a unique sensor model using both parametric and non-parametric methods is highly challenging. We learn decision regions using the Gaussian Processes classification to accept measurements that are consistent with the operating sensor model. The proposed approach can perform online, does not rely on a…
HY Technic Ltd. Sti.（HY技术有限公司）；Eskisehir Osmangazi University（埃斯基谢希尔奥斯曼加齐大学）；Inovasyon Muhendislik Ltd. Sti.（创新工程有限公司）
Mobile robots have the capability to work in real-time autonomously. Autonomous behavior is strictly dependent on knowing the position of the mobile robot. The positioning of a mobile robot in an indoor area is a difficult task for only one sensor information is used. We proposed a system and method to locate the mobile robot via fusing signals from WIFI and odometer data via particle filter. In this study, the Particle filter is a well-known filter that is used for indoor positioning of mobile robots. The proposed system includes two parts that are RFKON system and evarobot for data collectio…
LiGen: GAN-Augmented Spectral Fingerprinting for Indoor Positioning
Department of Information Management, National Taiwan University, Taiwan（信息管理系，国立台湾大学）；Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia, National Taiwan University, Taiwan（网络与多媒体研究所，国立台湾大学）；Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taiwan（计算机科学与信息工程系，国立台湾大学）
Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt（英戈尔施塔特应用科学大学）；GeneSys Elektronik GmbH（吉内斯电子有限公司）；Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha（卡斯蒂利亚-拉曼恰大学）
The trend towards autonomous driving and the continuous research in the automotive area, like Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), requires an accurate localization under all circumstances. An accurate estimation of the vehicle state is a basic requirement for any trajectory-planning algorithm. Still, even when the introduction of the GPS L5 band promises lane-accuracy, coverage limitations in roofed areas still have to be addressed. In this work, a method for high precision indoor positioning using a LiDAR is presented. The method is based on the combination of motion models with LiDAR …
University at Oxford（牛津大学）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）
Positional estimation is of great importance in the public safety sector. Emergency responders such as fire fighters, medical rescue teams, and the police will all benefit from a resilient positioning system to deliver safe and effective emergency services. Unfortunately, satellite navigation (e.g., GPS) offers limited coverage in indoor environments. It is also not possible to rely on infrastructure based solutions. To this end, wearable sensor-aided navigation techniques, such as those based on camera and Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), have recently emerged recently as an accurate, infras…
We present a range-based solution for indoor relative localization by Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs), achieving sufficient accuracy for leader-follower flight. Moving forward from previous work, we removed the dependency on a common heading measurement by the MAVs, making the relative localization accuracy independent of magnetometer readings. We found that this restricts the relative maneuvers that guarantee observability, and also that higher accuracy range measurements are required to rectify the missing heading information, yet both disadvantages can be tackled. Our implementation uses Ultra Wi…
In this paper we address the problem of indoor localization using magnetic field data in two setups, when data is collected by (i) human-held mobile phone and (ii) by localization robots that perturb magnetic data with their own electromagnetic field. For the first setup, we revise the state of the art approaches and propose a novel extended pipeline to benefit from the presence of magnetic anomalies in indoor environment created by different ferromagnetic objects. We capture changes of the Earth's magnetic field due to indoor magnetic anomalies and transform them in multi-variate times series…
In this paper, we present an implementation of 3-D reciprocal collision avoidance on real quadrotor helicopters where each quadrotor senses the relative position and velocity of other quadrotors using an on-board camera. We show that using our approach, quadrotors are able to successfully avoid pairwise collisions in GPS and motion-capture denied environments, without communication between the quadrotors, and even when human operators deliberately attempt to induce collisions. To our knowledge, this is the first time that reciprocal collision avoidance has been successfully implemented on real…
Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt（因戈尔施塔特应用技术大学）；GeneSys Elektronik GmbH（GeneSys电子有限公司）；University of Castilla-La Mancha（卡斯蒂利亚-拉曼恰大学）
Autonomous driving is an important trend of the automotive industry. The continuous research towards this goal requires a precise reference vehicle state estimation under all circumstances in order to develop and test autonomous vehicle functions. However, even when lane-accurate positioning is expected from oncoming technologies, like the L5 GPS band, the question of accurate positioning in roofed areas, e.\,g., tunnels or park houses, still has to be addressed. In this paper, a novel procedure for a reference vehicle state estimation is presented. The procedure includes three main components…
Robotics Institute, University of Michigan（密歇根大学机器人研究所）
WiFi technology has been used pervasively in fine-grained indoor localization, gesture recognition, and adaptive communication. Achieving better performance in these tasks generally boils down to differentiating Line-Of-Sight (LOS) from Non-Line-Of-Sight (NLOS) signal propagation reliably which generally requires expensive/specialized hardware due to the complex nature of indoor environments. Hence, the development of low-cost accurate positioning systems that exploit available infrastructure is not entirely solved. In this paper, we develop a framework for indoor localization and tracking of …
