• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2009

One of the main problems of topological localization in a real indoor environment is variations in the environment caused by dynamic objects and changes in illumination. Another problem arises from the sense of topological localization itself. Thus, a robot must be able to recognize observations at slightly different positions and angles within a certain topological location as identical in terms of topological localization. In this paper, a possible solution to these problems is addressed in the domain of global topological localization for mobile robots, in which environments are represented by their visual appearance. Our approach is formulated on the basis of a probabilistic model called the Bayes filter. Here, marginalization of dynamics in the environment, marginalization of viewpoint changes in a topological location, and fusion of multiple visual features are employed to measure observations reliably, and action-based view transition model and action-associated topological map are used to predict the next state. We performed experiments to demonstrate the validity of our proposed approach among several standard approaches in the field of topological localization. The results clearly demonstrated the value of our approach.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.822-827
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• 2003

Topological maps have drawn more attention recently because they are compact, provide natural interfaces, and are applicable to path planning easily. To build a topological map incrementally, Voronoi diagram was used by many researchers. The Voronoi diagram, however, has difficulty in applying to arbitrarily shaped objects and needs long computation time. In this paper, we present a new method for global topological map from the local topological maps incrementally. The local topological maps are created through a thinning algorithm from a local grid map, which is built based on the sensor information at the current robot position. A thinning method requires simpler computation than the Voronoi diagram. Localization based on the topological map is usually difficult, but additional nodes created by the thinning method can improve localization performance. A series of experiments have been conducted using a two-wheeled mobile robot equipped with a laser scanner. It is shown that the proposed scheme can create satisfactory topological maps.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.450-456
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• 2006

Monte Carlo localization is known to be one of the most reliable methods for pose estimation of a mobile robot. Although MCL is capable of estimating the robot pose even for a completely unknown initial pose in the known environment, it takes considerable time to give an initial pose estimate because the number of random samples is usually very large especially for a large-scale environment. For practical implementation of MCL, therefore, a reduction in sample size is desirable. This paper presents a novel approach to reducing the number of samples used in the particle filter for efficient implementation of MCL. To this end, the topological information generated through the thinning technique, which is commonly used in image processing, is employed. The global topological map is first created from the given grid map for the environment. The robot then scans the local environment using a laser rangefinder and generates a local topological map. The robot then navigates only on this local topological edge, which is likely to be similar to the one obtained off-line from the given grid map. Random samples are drawn near the topological edge instead of being taken with uniform distribution all over the environment, since the robot traverses along the edge. Experimental results using the proposed method show that the number of samples can be reduced considerably, and the time required for robot pose estimation can also be substantially decreased without adverse effects on the performance of MCL.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.189-200
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• 2007

This paper addresses the localization and navigation problem in the movement of service robots by using invisible two dimensional barcodes on the floor. Compared with other methods using natural or artificial landmarks, the proposed localization method has great advantages in cost and appearance since the location of the robot is perfectly known using the barcode information after mapping is finished. We also propose a navigation algorithm which uses a topological structure. For the topological information, we define nodes and edges which are suitable for indoor navigation, especially for large area having multiple rooms, many walls, and many static obstacles. The proposed algorithm also has the advantage that errors which occur in each node are mutually independent and can be compensated exactly after some navigation using barcodes. Simulation and experimental results were performed to verify the algorithm in the barcode environment, showing excellent performance results. After mapping, it is also possible to solve the kidnapped robot problem and to generate paths using topological information.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2004.07d
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• pp.2450-2452
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• 2004

Map building is essential to a mobile robot navigation system. Localization and path planning methods depend on map building strategies. A topological map is commonly constructed using the GVG(Generalized Voronoi Graph). The advantage of the GVG based topological map is compactness. But the GVG method have many difficulties because it consists of collision-free path. In this paper, we proposed an extended map building method, the AVG (Areal Voronoi Graph) based topological map. The AVG based topological map consists of collision-free area. This feature can improve map building, localization and path planning performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.306-311
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• 2003

This paper presents a novel localization paradigm for mobile robots based on artificial and natural landmarks. A model-based object recognition method detects natural landmarks and conducts the global and topological localization. In addition, a metric localization method using artificial landmarks is fused to complement the deficiency of topology map and guide to action behavior. The recognition algorithm uses a modified local Zernike moments and a probabilistic voting method for the robust detection of objects in cluttered indoor environments. An artificial landmark is designed to have a three-dimensional multi-colored structure and the projection distortion of the structure encodes the distance and viewing direction of the robot. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system through real world experiments using a mobile robot, KASIRI-III.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.655-666
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• 2007

There are nodes and edges in a topological map. Node data has been used as a main source of information for the localization of mobile robots. In contrast, edge data is regarded as a minor source of information, and it has been used in an intuitive and heuristic way. However, edge data also can be used as a good source of information and provide a way to use edge data efficiently. For that purpose, we define a data format which describes the shape of an edge. This format is called local generalized Voronoi graph's angle (LGA). However, the LGA is constituted of too many samples; therefore, real time localization cannot be performed. To reduce the number of samples, we propose a compression method which utilizes wavelet transformation. This method abstracts the LGA by key factors using far fewer samples than the LGA. Experiments show that the LGA accurately describes the shape of the edges and that the key factors preserve most information of the LGA while reducing the number of samples.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.901-905
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• 2005

Monte Carlo localization is known to be one of the most reliable methods for pose estimation of a mobile robot. Much research has been done to improve performance of MCL so far. Although MCL is capable of estimating the robot pose even for a completely unknown initial pose in the known environment, it takes considerable time to give an initial estimate because the number of random samples is usually very large especially for a large-scale environment. For practical implementation of the MCL, therefore, a reduction in sample size is desirable. This paper presents a novel approach to reducing the number of samples used in the particle filter for efficient implementation of MCL. To this end, the topological information generated off- line using a thinning method, which is commonly used in image processing, is employed. The topological map is first created from the given grid map for the environment. The robot scans the local environment using a laser rangefinder and generates a local topological map. The robot then navigates only on this local topological edge, which is likely to be the same as the one obtained off- line from the given grid map. Random samples are drawn near the off-line topological edge instead of being taken with uniform distribution, since the robot traverses along the edge. In this way, the sample size required for MCL can be drastically reduced, thus leading to reduced initial operation time. Experimental results using the proposed method show that the number of samples can be reduced considerably, and the time required for robot pose estimation can also be substantially decreased.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.9 s.252
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• pp.1124-1133
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• 2006

This paper addresses the localization and navigation problem using invisible two dimensional barcodes on the floor. Compared with other methods using natural/artificial landmark, the proposed localization method has great advantages in cost and appearance, since the location of the robot is perfectly known using the barcode information after the mapping is finished. We also propose a navigation algorithm which uses the topological structure. For the topological information, we define nodes and edges which are suitable for indoor navigation, especially for large area having multiple rooms, many walls and many static obstacles. The proposed algorithm also has an advantage that errors occurred in each node are mutually independent and can be compensated exactly after some navigation using barcode. Simulation and experimental results. were performed to verify the algorithm in the barcode environment, and the result showed an excellent performance. After mapping, it is also possible to solve the kidnapped case and generate paths using topological information.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.205-216
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• 2016

The localization of the robot is one of the most important factors of navigating mobile robots. The use of featured information of landmarks is one approach to estimate the location of the robot. This approach can be classified into two categories: the natural-landmark-based and artificial-landmark-based approach. Natural landmarks are suitable for any environment, but they may not be sufficient for localization in the less featured or dynamic environment. On the other hand, artificial landmarks may generate shaded areas due to space constraints. In order to improve these disadvantages, this paper presents a novel development of the localization system by using artificial and natural-landmarks-based approach on a topological map. The proposed localization system can recognize far or near landmarks without any distortion by using landmark tracking system based on top-view image transform. The camera is rotated by distance of landmark. The experiment shows a result of performing position recognition without shading section by applying the proposed system with a small number of artificial landmarks in the mobile robot.