Advanced sonar and laser range finder fusion for simultaneous localization and mapping

Abstract

Increasing the information content of measurements can ease some of the problems associated with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). We present an approach for combining measurements from a laser range finder with measurements from an advanced sonar array capable of accurate range and bearing measurements and edge, corner and plane classification. In our approach sonar aids laser segmentation, laser aids good sonar point feature selection and laser and sonar measurements of the same object are fused. We also present a novel approach for fitting right angle corners to laser range data, which enables simple error estimation through the minimization of sum of square range residuals. The results are then used for SLAM with a mobile robot.