Robot Pose Measurement System

The primary objective of this project is to devise and build a prototype system that tracks the position and orientation of a mobile robot. Tasks such as ammunition handling, resupply, and logistics applications often make use of mobile robots such as a Cybermotion robot. These mobile robots have a severe deficiency in that there is sufficient slippage between the wheels and the floor that after very short distances, the robot no longer knows its position. Once the robot docks at a station the position can be re-established but this is inadequate because it is slow, unreliable, requires expensive hardware at each docking station, and does not help the robot navigate between docking stations. We believe we have a practical, reliable system which will provide the position and orientation of a mobile robot at a rate of 60 measurements per second. No wires at all are required between the robot and the base station, and the system is portable and requires only a single base station whose position and orientation is known relative to the work area.