Improvement of a measurement system for reflectors that are used for navigation of mobile units

Under the second half of the 80's a laserbased navigation system was developed at the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department at Luleå University of technology (LTU). This system is built on preprogrammed maps of reflectors that the robots are using to calculate their position and heading. Danaher Motion Särö AB has developed a system to create the maps by measuring the position of the reflectors, earlier this was done by hand. This system is implemented in a program called AutoSurveyor II that can be used on vehicles with steer-drive (SD) three wheel configuration. In the research project MICA (Mobile Internet Connected Assistant), at LTU and University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland, this navigation system is used on an electrical wheelchair with differential steering. In this project there is a need to be able to run AutoSurveyor on the wheelchair and therefore this work was made. This master thesis provide an improvement of AutoSurveyor II whichm akes it possible to run it on mobile robots with differential and quad steering systems. It also implements the use of a gyro to improve the odometry of a vehicle which (will be showed) is a must for using the program on the wheelchair. Additionally improvements of AS2 includes a network interface making it compatible with next generation of controlling hardware from Danaher and GUI changes.Validerat; 20101217 (root