Relative position localizing system for multiple autonomous mobile robots in distributed robotic system: System design and simulation

Coordination strategies and algorithms for a system with multiple autonomous mobile robots often require a robot to know the relative position of other robots in its vicinity (Beni and Wang, 1991; Wang, 1993; Wang and Premvuti, 1994). Many experimental systems employ centralized localization mechanisms, which are invalid for a fully distributed robotic system. An ideal mechanism for relative localization is a fully autonomous passive sensing system (Graefe, 1989; Miura and Shirai, 1994), such as stereo vision, which involves great degree of sophistication and high cost. In this paper, an alternative autonomous relative localization strategy is proposed. Measurement of distance is based on detecting linear velocity of a vertical slit laser beam from a rotating beacon that projected on the photodiode array mounted in round belt shape installed on a robot. Linear velocity of sweeping beam on the sensor array can be interpreted as the distance from a beacon based on an equation. upsilon=r omega, where upsilon is the linear velocity of the laser beam projected on sensor array which can be measured, I is the distance from a beacon to the sensor array which we want to know, and omega is the angular velocity of beacon which is constant and known. Direction is also detected by locating area on the sensor array where the beam is projected and finding the center of that area.