Estimation of Mobile Robot Pose from Optical Mouses

This paper describes a simple method of dead-reckoning based on off-the-shelf components: optical mouses and a laptop. The problem is formulated as finding a transformation of mouses positions to position of the robot. The formulation of the transformation is based on a method already used in range-based localization. Beside a solution of the transformation, the paper provides description of practical application of mouse based localization for a home made robot. The paper considers identification and mouse data reading procedures as well. The presented approach has been evaluated in several real experiments and the proposed localization provides competitive results to the odometry based on high-precision stepper motors.