A GPS/DR Data Fusion Method Based on the GPS Characteristics for Mobile Robot Navigation

In this paper we have considered the problem of outdoor mobile robot navigation using dead reckoning (DR) system and single GPS receiver. DR is a very simple and practical positioning technique. It is used in various positioning and navigation applications, especially for the mobile robot. DR can provide short term precise navigation information. But its errors will generally accumulate as the mobile robot continues to travel, and the calculated position of the mobile robot will become less and less accurate. For outdoor navigation application, GPS exhibit lots of advantages. It can provide real time and relatively accurate position data in spite of bad weather or other negative factors. But the big errors of civilian used single GPS receiver prevent it from applying to navigation for mobile robot alone. Differential GPS (DGPS) can be used to achieve an error of less than one meter but the costs are prohibitive in terms of commercializing it into the mass market. In this study, a cheap single GPS receiver cooperated with a DR system was used for the navigation system of a outdoors mobile robot in which a new GPS/DR data fusion method was utilized. This proposed fusion algorithm was based on the characteristics of the chosen single GPS receiver. The presented fusion algorithm does not bring much calculation burden and can provide accurate and robust navigation information for the mobile robot by adaptively switching between GPS/DR and DR when GPS lost the satellite signals. Simulation and experiment were performed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed fusion method and the good results showed its potential for outdoors mobile robot navigation.