以RFID及WiFi定位技術設計自我導航機器人系統

Abstract

我們想建立一套應用在家庭或辦公空間的室內移動機器人系統。在家庭或辦公空間，物品位置常會有變動的情形發生。所以，機器人的自我導航的能力對機器人是否能順利到達指定位置成為了關鍵的因素。在整合了無線通訊，室內定位和RFID技術後，我們可以建立一套低成本的自我導航機器人系統。我們提出了一個架構，可以在公分級到公尺級的精準度中達成此目標。首先，機器人可以下載目前區域的室內地圖，再透過WiFi定位方式來決定公尺等級的初步位置，進一步，經由下載的室內地圖，機器人可以透過我們設計的搜尋的方式，嚐試讀取預先設置的RFID地標。當機器人實際讀取到RFID地標時，就可以將自己的位置設定到公分等級的精準度並提供良好的服務了。為了驗證我們提出方法的可行性，我們以iRobot平台開發了一個雛型系統。由實驗的結果，這個方法在未來家庭和辦公環境中會有很好的應用機會。

We consider building an indoor low-cost mobile robot that can be used in home or office applications. Due to the complication and dynamic changing nature of a home/office environment, it is essential for such a robot to be self-guiding in the sense that it is able to determine its current location as well as navigate to locations which it is commanded to. By integrating with wireless communication, indoor localization, and RFID technologies, it is possible to build a self-guiding robot at low cost. We propose an architecture to achieve this goal at centimeter-to-meter level accuracy. A robot can even roam into an area which is new to it. We achieve this goal by allowing a robot to download the indoor map in its vicinity. With WiFi localization, it determines its rough location at meter-level accuracy. From the downloaded map, it then tries to track any RFID tag in the indoor map, on which events it actually localizes itself at centimeter-level accuracy. To verify our results, we demonstrate a prototyping system based on iRobot. Our results have potentially important implications on future digital home/office.