Design of an absolute location and position measuring system for a mobile robot

This paper focuses on a development of a sensor system measuring locations of a vehicle to localize a mobile robot while it tracks on the track (locat ion sensor). Also it focuses on a system configuration identifying the vehi cle's orientation and distance from the object while it is stationary at ce rtain station (position sensor). As for the location sensor, it consists of a set of sensors with a combined guiding and counting sensor, and an addre ss-coded sensor to localize the vehicle while moving on the rail. For the p osition sensor a PSD (Position Sensitive Device) sensor with photo-switches sensor to measure the offset and orientation of the vehicle at each statio n is introduced. Both sensor systems are integrated with a microprocessor a s a data relay to the main computer controlling the vehicle. The location s ensor system is developed and its performance for a mobile robot is verifie d by experiments. The position measuring system is proposed and is robust t o the environmental variation. Moreover, the two kinds of sensor systems gu arantee a low cost application and high reliability.