Localization and Navigation Assisted by Networked Cooperating Sensors and Robots

In this paper we discuss how a network of sensors and robots can cooperate to solve important robotics problems such as localization and navigation. We use a robot to localize sensor nodes, and we then use these localized nodes to navigate robots and humans through the sensorized space. We explore these novel ideas with results from two large-scale sensor network and robot experiments involving 50 motes, two types of flying robot: an autonomous helicopter and a large indoor cable array robot, and a human–network interface. We present the distributed algorithms for localization, geographic routing, path definition and incremental navigation.We also describe how a human can be guided using a simple hand-held device that interfaces to this same environmental infrastructure. KEY WORDS—distributed robots, networked robots, localization, navigation, sensor nets