Algorithms and sensors for small robot path following."Robotics and Automation

Tracked mobile robots in the 20 kg size class are under devel-opment for applications in urban reconnaissance. For efficient deployment, it is desirable for teams of robots to be able to automatically execute path following behaviors, with one or more followers tracking the path taken by a leader. The key challenges to enabling such a capability are (1) to develop sen-sor packages for such small robots that can accurately deter-mine the path of the leader and (2) to develop path following algorithms for the subsequent robots. To date, we have inte-grated gyros, accelerometers, compass/inclinometers, odom-etry, and differential GPS into an effective sensing package. This paper describes the sensor package, sensor processing al-gorithm, and path tracking algorithm we have developed for the leader/follower problem in small robots and shows the re-sults of performance characterization of the system. We also document pragmatic lessons learned about design, construc-tion, and electromagnetic interference issues particular to the performance of state sensors on small robots.