Design of a Low-Cost Indoor Navigation System for Food Delivery Robot Based on Multi-Sensor Information Fusion

Abstract

As the restaurant industry is facing labor shortage issues, the use of meal delivery robots instead of waiters/waitresses not only allows the customers to experience the impact of robot technology but also benefits the restaurant business financially by reducing labor costs. Most existing meal delivery robots employ magnetic navigation technologies, which require magnetic strip installation and changes to the restaurant decor. Once the moving path is changed, the magnetic strips need to be re-laid. This study proposes multisource information fusion, i.e., the fusion of ultra-wide band positioning technology with an odometer and a low-cost gyroscope accelerometer, to achieve the positioning of a non-rail meal delivery robot with navigation. By using a low-cost electronic compass and gyroscope accelerometer, the delivery robot can move along a fixed orbit in a flexible and cost-effective manner with steering control. Ultra-wide band (UWB) and track estimation algorithm are combined by extended Kalman filter (EKF), and the positioning error after fusion is about 15 cm, which is accepted by restaurants. In summary, the proposed approach has some potential for commercial applications.

Smooth velocity tracking and kinematic-based fuzzy control of carrying mobile robots

“…The velocity graph computed using the method in [2] has 453.16% maximum overshoot from the reference velocity, while this overshoot is 3.69% using the presented method. On the other hand, if the errors derivatives are entered to the fuzzy logic [7][8][9][10][11], velocity is tracked at the price of a larger number of enforced fuzzy rules. Compared to 2*20 rules employed in Table 5, 3*49 rules are designed in [8] and [11].…”

“…The carrying mobile robots are widely exploited in health care, agriculture, food preparation, manufacturing, and military industries. An example of using this technology is the food delivery navigation system [7] and robots carrying the medical rehabilitation devices [8]. It is important to prevent the packages from being exposed to motion forces when carrying food or liquid.…”

“…Few previous works are dedicated to designing the proper fuzzy logics that guarantee velocity tracking. In this regard, the velocity tracking feature has been investigated in specific applications like food delivery robots [7], robots carrying rehabilitation devices [8], and the under actuated finger of a robotic hand [9]. Typically, posture errors are entered into a fuzzy logic for path tracking purposes.…”

“…Typically, posture errors are entered into a fuzzy logic for path tracking purposes. However, for a velocity tracking observation, the rate changes of posture errors are also entered to the fuzzy logic [7][8][9]. The same combination of errors and errors rate are exploited as fuzzy inputs in [10], where a fuzzy ring network method is used to control a multi-motor coordinated system and in [11], in which the trajectory tracking of a pneumatic driven linear delta robot is studied.…”

An Indoor Positioning and Navigation System Using Named Data Networking

“…While GPS for outdoor navigation is fairly common and part of our daily lives, navigating indoors and fine-grained navigation have seen a recent increase in popularity [32]- [34]. Dijkstra's algorithm is being widely used for pathfinding problems because it is simple to use and provides robust results [35].…”