Multi-floor localization method for mobile robots using elevator

Abstract

This paper proposes a new localization method for the mobile robots which should move to other floors using the elevators. The mobile robots use the various maps to obtain the spatial information, e.g. the floor numbers, the locations of waypoints, the structure shape of the spaces, etc. so that they can estimate the accurate position in the multi-floor buildings. As the maps in this paper, there are the grid-based map, the radio-based map, and the Point of Interest (POI) map. In addition, the mobile robots need to a localization framework to estimate their positions in the multi-floor spaces using the maps and the adequate sensors. As the sensors in this paper, the robot equipped with the laser range finder, the 3D depth sensor, and Wi-Fi receiver. The localization framework can find the positions of the robots by integrating the observations of sensors and the information of the map when the robots should move to the destination in other floor space. Finally, the experiments are performed to evaluate the proposed localization framework using the real robots. The experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed method that can be utilized as the multi-floor localization system for the mobile robots.