Accurate mobile robot dead-reckoning with a precision-calibrated fiber optic gyroscope

This paper describes two methods aimed at improving dead-reckoning accuracy with fiber optic gyroscopes (FOGs) in mobile robots. The first method is a precision calibration procedure for FOGs, which effectively reduces the ill-effects of non-linearity of the scale-factor and temperature dependency. The second method is the implementation of an indirect feedback Kalman filter that fuses the sensor data from the FOG with the odometry system of the mobile robot. The paper also provides experimental results and compares the relative effectiveness of the two methods as implemented on a four-wheel drive/skid-steer Pioneer AT mobile robot. Key words: Mobile robot, dead-reckoning, fiber optic gyroscope, indirect feedback Kalman filter, odometry