Laser scan matching for mobile robot localization

• Main Author: Karunagaran Giridharan.
• Other Authors: Wijerupage Sardha Wijesoma
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Control and instrumentation::Robotics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/18830
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This masters project deals with mobile robot localization - making the robot aware of its position with respect to its environment or the global frame. Odome - try from the robot does give us this position information directly, but it is always erroneous, with the errors also adding up over time. There are several ways to correct the errors in the odometry awl thereby achieve robust localization. One of those techniques is Laser Scan Matching and it is the focus of this project. The Laser Scan Matching algorithm processes two laser scans taken from a mobile robot’s Laser Range Finder sensor to obtain information about the translation and rotation executed by the robot, in the time between the two scans. Further, the algorithm has several distinct steps that are executed in sequence, in order to obtain these translation and orientation estimates. This major portion of this project involved the studying, implementing and testing of the Laser Scan Matching algorithm in matlab, using laser scans front both simulations and from actual laser scanners. By scan-matching consecutive scans from a mobile robot’s laser seamier, we can obtain estimates for the translations and rotations made by the robot all through its run, and thereby estimate its path. This has also been explored in this project. The estimation of the robot path using the laser scan matching algorithm is localization and is what gave this report the title “Laser Scan Matching for Mobile Robot Localization”.