Smoother Based 3-D Attitude Estimation for Mobile Robot Localization

The mobile robot localization problem is decomposed into two stages attitude estimation followed by position estimation. The innovation of our method is the use of a smoother, in the attitude estimation loop that outperforms other Kalman lter based techniques in estimate accuracy. The smoother exploits the special nature of the data fused high frequency inertial sensor (gyroscope) data and low frequency absolute orientation data (from a compass or sun sensor). Two Kalman lters form the smoother. During each time interval one of them propagates the attitude estimate forward in time until it is updated by an absolute orientation sensor. At this time, the second lter propagates the recently renewed estimate back in time. The smoother optimally exploits the limited observability of the system by combining the outcome of the two lters. The system model uses gyro modeling which relies on integrating the kinematic equations to propagate the attitude estimates and obviates the need for comple...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Stergios I. Roumeliotis, Gaurav S. Sukhatme, George A. Bekey
• Keywords: Attitude Estimates, Attitude Estimation, ICRA 1999, Kalman Lter, Robotics