GPS-based localization for a surveillance UGV in outdoor areas

Abstract

The ANSER project (airport night surveillance expert robot) is described, exploiting a mobile robot for autonomous surveillance in civilian airports and similar wide outdoor areas. The paper focuses on the localization subsystem of the patrol robot: in contrast with most approaches in literature, we show how a positioning subsystem composed exclusively of a non-differential GPS unit (i.e., without inertial sensors) is enough to ensure accurate estimates of the robot's position and orientation, under the assumption of nonholonomic kinematics.