Experimental results from internal odometry error correction with the OmniMate mobile robot

This paper presents experimental results of test with a new method for detecting and correcting odometry errors without inertial or external-reference sensors. This method, called Internal Position Error Correction (IPEC), has been implemented on a new, commercially available mobile robot called “OmniMate,” which was specifically designed for the implementation of the IPEC method. The results presented in this paper show that the OmniMate can improve odometric accuracy by one order of magnitude over conventional mobile robots. The foremost advantage of the OmniMate with IPEC over conventional mobile robots is that the OmniMate’s odometry is almost completely insensitive to even severe irregularities of the floor, such as bumps, cracks, or traversable objects. With conventional mobile robots such irregularities can cause large odometry errors with potentially catastrophic effects (i.e., mission failure), thus mandating frequent external registrations to correct for possible odometry errors. The OmniMate with IPEC, on the other hand, detects and corrects such non-systematic odometry errors, thus allowing more reliable travel over larger distances. 1 A shorter version of this paper was presented at the Seventh Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems, Augusta, Georgia, April 27 May 1st, 1997.