Probabilistic Sonar Scan Matching for Robust Localization

Abstract

This paper presents a probabilistic framework to perform scan matching localization using standard time-of-flight ultrasonic sensors. Probabilistic models of the sensors as well as techniques to propagate the errors through the models are also presented and discussed. A method to estimate the most probable trajectory followed by the robot according to the scan matching and odometry estimations is also presented. Thanks to that, accurate robot localization can be performed without the need of geometric constraints. The experiments demonstrate the robustness of our method even in the presence of large amounts of noisy readings and odometric errors.