Semi-automatic Calibration of UWB Range Measurements for an Autonomous Mobile Robot

Abstract

In many commercial applications, robots are tasked to follow pre-programmed paths as precisely as possible. A prominent example is given by coverage paths, where accurate localization enables minimal segment (lane) overlap and thus increases efficiency. The localization system we designed for a novel autonomous robot is based on measurements obtained from odometry, a highly accurate gyroscope and UWB infrastructure. This paper addresses systematic ranging errors observed in the UWB range measurements andproposes a semi-automatic calibration method to estimate an error model approximating their effects. This method relies on properly calibrated odometry and can be executed even when no accurate, absolute positioning system (such as a GNSS or a camera-based motion tracker) is available.