An Outdoor High-Precision Local Positioning System for an Autonomous Robotic Golf Greens Mower

This paper presents a high-precision local positioning system (LPS) for an autonomous robotic greens mower. The LPS uses a sensor tower mounted on top of the robot and four active beacons surrounding a target area. The proposed LPS concurrently determines robot location and orientation. To perform localization, the sensor tower emits an ultrasonic pulse that is received by the beacons. The time of flight to each beacon is measured and transmitted back to the sensor tower. To determine the robot’s orientation, the sensor tower has a circular receiver array that detects infrared signals emitted by each beacon. Using the direction and strength of the received infrared signals, the relative angles to each beacon are obtained and the robot orientation can be determined. Experimental data show that the LPS achieves a position accuracy of 3.1 cm RMS, and an orientation accuracy of 0.23° RMS. Several prototype robotic mowers utilizing the proposed LPS have been deployed for field testing, and the mowing results are comparable to an experienced professional human worker.