Reliable Robot Localization

Conclusion

C.1. General conclusions

This book considers the localization of autonomous robots evolving in unstructured underwater environments. The common thread of this work is the use of temporal constraints and inter-temporal measurements that open new opportunities of localization, which are underexploited so far. In addition, these robotic problems have motivated the study of academic research topics in the fields of interval analysis and constraint programming. Our goal was to develop new reliable tools to fit our requirements. While their application to underwater experiments appears to be efficient, their use in other fields, such as automatic and control, collision avoidance, path planning, terrestrial localization or spatial trajectory evaluations, could also be considered.

Scope of the contributions

Our primary motivation is the localization of mobile robots in environments characterized by the paucity of relevant information. A SLAM approach would allow a concurrent localization of the vehicle and mapping of the area, without prior knowledge on the environment or the use of positioning systems. However, the previously existing approaches do not provide a comfortable fit: with poor measurements, unknown observation functions or strong positioning uncertainties. In addition, they do not provide guaranteed results that may be expected for safety reasons.

Our strategy consisted of taking a temporal approach to solving a spatial problem. Indeed, time references tie ...