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A bacterial colony growth algorithm for mobile robot localization

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Abstract

Achieving robot autonomy is a fundamental objective in Mobile Robotics. However in order to realize this goal, a robot must be aware of its location within an environment. Therefore, the localization problem (i.e.,the problem of determining robot pose relative to a map of its environment) must be addressed. This paper proposes a new biology-inspired approach to this problem. It takes advantage of models of species reproduction to provide a suitable framework for maintaining the multi-hypothesis. In addition, various strategies to track robot pose are proposed and investigated through statistical comparisons.

The Bacterial Colony Growth Algorithm (BCGA) provides two different levels of modeling: a background level that carries on the multi-hypothesis and a foreground level that identifies the best hypotheses according to an exchangeable strategy. Experiments, carried out on the robot ATRV-Jr manufactured by iRobot, show the effectiveness of the proposed BCGA.

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Correspondence to Andrea Gasparri.

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Gasparri, A., Prosperi, M. A bacterial colony growth algorithm for mobile robot localization. Auton Robot 24, 349–364 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-007-9076-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-007-9076-1

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