An Ultrasonic Vehicle Guidance System

Munro, W.S.H.; Pomeroy, S.C.; Rafiq, M.; Williams, Hannah; Wybrow, M. D.; Wykes, C.

doi:10.1109/iros.1989.637911

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Three dimensional sonar target classification based on pulse amplitude measurements is proposed in (Hong and Kleeman 1992), where statistical tests are derived for classifying planes and concave corners of two and three intersecting orthogonal planes. Other sonar array sensors that report range and bearing to targets have been reported (Munro et al 1989, Yang et al 1992, Suoranta 1992, Manyika and Durrant-Whyte 1993 and proposed (Sabatini 1992). This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 establishes that a minimum of two transmitters and two receivers are required to classify planes, corners and edges without sensor movement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile Robot Sonar for Target Localization and Classification

Kleeman

Kuc

1995

The International Journal of Robotics Research

250

188

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A novel sonar array is presented that has applications in mobile robotics for localization and mapping of indoor environments. The ultrasonic sensor localizes and classifies multiple targets in two dimensions to ranges of up to 8 meters. By accounting for effects of temperature and humidity, the system is accurate to within a millimeter and 0.1 degrees in still air. Targets separated by 10 mm in range can be discriminated. The error covariance matrix for these measurements is derived to allow fusion with other sensors. Targets are statistically classified into four reflector types: planes, corners, edges and unknown.The paper establishes that two transmitters and two receivers are necessary and sufficient to distinguish planes, corners and edges. A sensor array is presented with this minimum number of transmitters and receivers. A novel design approach is that the receivers are closely spaced so as to minimize the correspondence problem of associating different receiver echoes from multiple targets.A linear filter model for pulse transmission, reception, air absorption and dispersion is used to generate a set of templates for the echo as a function of range and bearing angle. The optimal echo arrival time is estimated from the maximum cross-correlation of the echo with the templates. The use of templates also allows overlapping echoes and disturbances to be rejected. Noise characteristics are modeled for use in the maximum likelihood estimates of target range and bearing. Experimental results are presented to verify assumptions and characterize the sensor.

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