A mobile robot requires the perception of its local environment for position estimation. Ultrasonic range data provide a robust description of the local environment for navigation. This article presents an ultrasonic sensor localization system for autonomous mA mobile robot requires the perception of its local environment for position estimation. Ultrasonic range data provide a robust description of the local environment for navigation. This article presents an ultrasonic sensor localization system for autonomous mobile robot navigation in an indoor semi-structured environment. The proposed algorithm is based upon an iterative non-linear filter, which utilizes matches between observed geometric beacons and an a-priori map of beacon locations, to correct the position and orientation of the vehicle. A non-linear filter based on a genetic algorithm as an emerging optimization method to search for optimal positions is described. The resulting self-localization module has been integrated successfully in a more complex navigation system. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in real world applications.[+][-]
