Combining Sonar and Infrared Sensors for Mobile Robot Navigation

Abstract

Multiple sensors can be used on a mobile robot so that it can perceive its environment with better accuracy than if either sensor were used alone. Sonar and infrared sensors are used here in a complementary fashion, where the advantages of one compensate for the disadvantages of the other. The robot then combines the information from the two sensors to build a more accurate map. Another representation, a modified version of the curvature primal sketch, is extracted from this perceived workspace and is used as the input to two path planning programs: one based on configuration space and one based on a generalized cone formulation of free space.