A Real-Time Map Refinement Method Using a Multi-Sensor Localization Framework

In today’s world, automatic navigation for a robotic device (autonomous vehicle and robot) is a pre-requisite for many complex tasks, which requires a robust localization method. We focus in this paper on the topic of localizing such a robot into an absolute and imprecise map. We propose a multi-sensor self-localization method, which is simultaneously able to operate with an imprecise map, as well as to improve the precision of an already existing one. The method uses split covariance intersection filter as well as an a priori selection of the best informative measurements out of all possible measurement sources at each time step. This selection scheme is based on an “added Shannon information”-based criterion. We demonstrate in operation via statistical analysis the consistency of a refined map obtained from a biased map while keeping vehicle localization integrity. On top of this, we demonstrate solving of the so-called kidnapped-robot problem using the same framework.