Low cost self-localization system with two beacons

Abstract

The use of mobile robots for advertisement or entertainment purposes has been subject to several approaches without great success, mainly due to the high cost of the robots and their maintenance. This paper presents the self-localization system of an easy to use, low cost yet robust robotic platform which, expectedly, will have an increased value in the market. The low cost self-localization system of the platform is based on the detection of two infrared-emitting beacons (using a simple infrared sensor) and odometry. It allows computing both the position and the orientation of the robot in an external referential. To achieve this, an algorithm based on geometric considerations has been developed. Since it does not require too much computing power, it is implementable in low cost computing platforms such as small microcontrollers.