Seamless mobile robot localization service framework for integrated localization systems

Abstract

According to the importance as one of the most basic preconditions for autonomy of mobile robots, efforts to provide global localization services continuously without loss have been advanced so far, and with current trends toward indoor service robots, not only outdoor but also indoor global localization is highly demanded. However, none of existing localization systems guarantees seamless and transparent global localization services regardless of indoor and outdoor. In this paper, we propose integrated localization service framework for mobile robots to address seamless global localization services. Our key considerations for the proposed framework are seamlessness by applying a new localization method and transparency by designing new architecture of fusion. We also implement integrated localization system by embodying the proposed framework based on RF technologies, and show that it achieves reasonable localization accuracy compared to other existing localization systems as addressing seamlessness and transparency.