Heterogeneous multi-robot localization in unknown 3D space

Abstract — This paper presents a self-localization strategy for a team of heterogenous mobile robots including ground mobile robots of various sizes and wall-climbing robots. These robots are equipped with various visual sensors, such as miniature webcams, omndirectional cameras, and PTZ cameras. As the core of this work, a formation of four-robot team is constructed to operate in a 3D space, e.g., moving on ground, climbing on walls and clinging to ceilings. The four robots could dynamically localize themselves asynchronously by employing cooperative vision techniques. Three of them on the ground mutually view each other and determine their relative poses with 6 degrees of freedom (DOFs). A wall-climbing robot, which significantly extends the work space of the robot team to 3D, is at a vantage point (e.g., on the ceiling) such that it can see all the three teammates, thus determining its own location and orientation. The four-robot formation theory and algorithms are presented, and experimental results with both simulated and real image data are provided to demonstrate the feasibility of this formation. Two 3D localization and control strategies are designed for applications such as search & rescue and surveillance in 3D urban environments where robots must be deployed in a full 3D space. Index terms: Multi-robot system, climbing robot, localizatio