Localization of a Mobile Robot Using Relative Bearing Measurements

Abstract

In this paper, the problem of recursive robot localization based on relative bearing measurements is considered, where unknown but bounded measurement uncertainties are assumed. A common approach is to approximate the resulting set of feasible states by simple-shaped bounding sets such as, e.g., axis-aligned boxes, and calculate the optimal parameters of this approximation based on the measurements and prior knowledge. In the novel approach presented here, a nonlinear transformation of the measurement equation into a higher dimensional space is performed. This yields a tight, possibly complex-shaped, bounding set in a closed-form representation whose parameters can be determined analytically for the measurement step. It is shown that the new bound is superior to commonly used outer bounds.