Robot position estimation on a RFID-tagged smart floor

We describe a navigation and position estimation system for mobile service robots which is based on RFID technology. This system avoids deficiencies of existing solutions and offers high flexibility and accuracy at moderate cost. The core idea of the system is to structure the work space by means of a Smart Floor in a manner which enables and supports reliable navigation and positioning with absolute accuracy over large distances. The "intelligence" of the floor is in a dense, area-wide network of thousands of RFID transponder, which are mounted underneath the regular floor covering and quasi serve as radio beacons. The system has been presented at CeBIT 2006 in Hannover by invitation of the German Ministry of Education and Research. InMach Intelligente Maschinen has further received the Walter Reis Innovation Award for Service Robotics for this innovative solution. It is important to note that although the primary focus of the work described in this paper is on the guidance of service robots in large-scale indoor environments, the Smart Floor described below provides the infrastructure for all kinds of location-based services which might be of relevance in a large facility. The economic value of these services may even exceed the economic value of automated cleaning.