The key motivation of this study is for a style of the sensor arrangement to have an effect on the localization performance of mobile robots in case of using sonar sensors. In general robot platforms with sonar sensors, sonar sensors are supposed to be radially arranged on their rotational axis of mobile robots. However, relevant limits to several functions required for their autonomous navigation occur unexpectedly, because a sonar sensor generally has the negative nature of its wide beam width together with the specular reflection. We present a new strategy of the sonar sensor arrangement capable of enhancing the localization performance. Sonar sensors are intended to be arranged nonradially (twistedly expressed in this paper) on their rotational axis. The localization scheme called STARER: Sonar-Twisted ARrangement localizER is based on the extended Kalman filter (EKF) with occupancy grid maps. Experimental results demonstrate the validity and robustness of the proposed method for the localization of mobile robots.

• 이세진(Member, Division of Mechanical & Automotive Engineering, Kongju National University) | Se-Jin Lee Corresponding author