Cooperative localization method for multi-robot based on PF-EKF

A method of cooperative localization for multi-robot in an unknown environment is described. They share information and perform localization by using relative observations and necessary communication. At initial time, robots do not know their positions. Once the robot that can obtain the absolute position information has its position, other robots use particle filter to fuse relative observations and maintain a set of samples respectively representing their positions. When the particles are close to a Gaussian distribution after a number of steps, we switch to an EKF to track the pose of the robots. Simulation results and real experiment show that PF-EKF method combines the robustness of PF and the efficiency of EKF. Robots can share the absolute position information and effectively localize themselves in an unknown environment.