On-line sensor calibration and localization for mobile robot navigation

As the environment under which the mobile robot works varies, the characteristic of the sensors for the mobile robot navigation also varies. Thus it is desirable that the sensor is calibrated on-line for more reliable information using the measurements during the mobile robot performs a task. This paper presents an on-line sensor calibration scheme to estimate the unknown sensor bias for mobile robot navigation using the parity vector and recursive minimum variance estimation. The calibration error equation independent of the current position is obtained from the parity vector and then the current position of the mobile robot is estimated from the calibrated sensor data. The validity of the proposed scheme is evaluated through computer simulation.