Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223

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Mechatronics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechatronics

Dead-reckoning sensor system and tracking algorithm for 3-D pipeline mapping
Dongjun Hyun a, Hyun Seok Yang a,*, Hyuk-Sung Park b, Hyo-Jun Kim c
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yonsei University, 262, Seongsanno, Seodamun-gu, Seoul 120-749, Republic of Korea
b
Robogen, RM133, Yonsei Engineering Research Park, 262, Seongsanno, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-749, Republic of Korea
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kangwon National University, KyoDong, Samcheok, Kangwon Do 245-711, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A dead-reckoning sensor system and a tracking algorithm for 3-D pipeline mapping are proposed for a tap
Received 11 March 2009 water pipeline for which the diameter is small and the inner surface is rough due to pipe scales. The goals
Accepted 30 November 2009 of this study are to overcome the performance limitations of small and low-grade sensors by combining
various sensors with complementary functions and achieve robustness against a severe environment. A
dead-reckoning sensor system consists of a small, low-cost micro electromechanical system inertial mea-
Keywords: surement unit (MEMS IMU) and an optical navigation sensor (used in laser mice). A tracking algorithm
3-D pipeline mapping
consists of a multi-rate extended Kalman filter (EKF) to fuse redundant and complementary data from
Dead reckoning
Multi-sensor fusion
the MEMS IMU and the optical navigation sensor and a geometry compensation method to reduce posi-
Extended Kalman filter tion estimation error using the end point of the pipeline. Two sets of experimental data have been
Optical navigation sensor obtained by driving a radio-controlled car equipped with the sensor system in a 3-D pipeline and on
asphalt pavement. Our study can be used to estimate the path of a 3-D pipeline or mobile robots.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction IMU to overcome the weakness of the optical navigation sensor. A

3-D pipeline mapping is important for the inspection and repair
of most pipelines. For pipelines buried under cities where incessant
construction increases the confusion of pipeline positioning, the
need for 3-D mapping significantly increases in order to prevent
the damage of pipelines from works such as excavation and con-
struction. Tap water pipelines have several difficulties using 3-D
pipeline mapping with established methods such as a geometry
pig used in gas/oil industries or ground penetrating radar (GPR).
A geometry pig equipped with a precise inertial measurement unit
and wheel-type odometer is not suitable for most tap water pipe-
lines because the diameter of most tap water pipelines is much
smaller than that of gas/oil industries and the pipe scales of tap
water pipelines disturb the odometer. Complex underground con-
ditions and obstacles, such as buildings and walls, disturb and con-
fuse the GPR.
The sensor system and tracking algorithm proposed in this
study are designed to achieve acceptable performance, size reduc-
tion and robustness against severe environments by applying an
adequate sensor fusion algorithm and constructing a sensor system
that consists of sensors with complementary function, although
the individual performance of sensors are low.
The dead-reckoning sensor system consists of a small, low-cost
MEMS IMU and an optical navigation sensor, that is recently
substituted with an odometer in [1–3] but is fused with the MEMS
small, low-cost MEMS IMU is conventionally used with wheel-type
odometers, GPS, or a vision system, due to the bias drift [4–9].
Optical navigation sensors typically used in mice measure dis-
placement with a noncontact-type sensor by comparing surface
images of the current and previous frame and, unlike wheel-type
odometers, are free from slip. Optical navigation sensors some-
times fail to measure the displacement, but this failure should be
distinguished from the slipping of the wheel-type odometers, since
detecting the failure of the optical navigation sensors is much eas-
ier than slip error detection.
The tracking algorithm consists of a multi-rate EKF to estimate
the states of the nonlinear system with redundant sensors that
have different sampling rates and a geometry compensation meth-
od to minimize the position error of the estimated path by combin-
ing the two geometry curves obtained by forward and backward
estimation. Multi-rate EKF fuses the inertial and optical navigation
sensor measurements using multi-rate sampling that is necessary
to treat asynchronous sensor data and irregularly occurring optical
navigation sensor failures. The position error reduction method
using the start and the end points in pipeline mapping was devel-
oped by backward smoothing filter in [10–12]. In this paper, the
geometric approach is applied to address the same problem.
2. Dead-reckoning sensor system

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 2123 2824; fax: +82 2 312 2159. The dead-reckoning sensor system consists of a MEMS IMU, an
E-mail address: hsyang@yonsei.ac.kr (H.S. Yang). optical navigation sensor, a CPU module, and an SD card. The CPU

0957-4158/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mechatronics.2009.11.009
214 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223

module in this study is comprised of an S3C2440 processor using
an ARM920T core, 4 MB Nor Flash, 64 MB Nand Flash, and 64 MB
SDRAM. The CPU module has an elegant, low-power, simple, and
fully static design for cost- and power-sensitive applications. The
CPU module stores the SD card with the MEMS IMU and optical
navigation sensor measurements for the post-processing of exper-
imental data. The storage capacity of the SD card is 1 GB and sensor
measurements can be written for more than 20 h. The MEMS IMU
is interfaced with RS-232 and offers a sampling period of 10 ms.
The optical navigation sensor is interfaced with SPI and provides
a sampling period of 5 ms or less. The dimensions of the MEMS
IMU are 58  58  22 mm, and the optical navigation sensor is
55  55  31 mm. The dead-reckoning sensor system is so com-
pact that it fits on a small mobile robot. Fig. 1 shows an overview
of the dead-reckoning sensor system.

Fig. 1. Overview of the tracking sensor system. Fig. 3. Linear motion experimental result of a MEMS accelerometer.

Fig. 2. Performance grade positioning of the IMU of [10] and MTi.

 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223 215

Fig. 4. Optical navigation sensor and new optical system.

Table 1
Process of the multi-rate EKF.

Process Multi-rate EKF

Measurement zkþ1 ¼ ½T ;Hkþ1 ¼ ½ and~ rkþ1 ¼ ½
 T T T
if z1;kþ1 ;zkþ1 ¼ ½zT zT1 Tkþ1 ;Hkþ1 ¼ ½HT HTz1 Tkþ1 and~rkþ1 ¼ ~r ~rz1 kþ1
.
if z2;kþ1 ;zkþ1 ¼ ½zT zT2 Tkþ1 ;Hkþ1 ¼ ½ HT HTz2 Tkþ1 and~ rTz2 kþ1 ..
T
rT ~
rkþ1 ¼ ½~

Prediction kþ1 ¼ f ðxk ; ukþ1 ; wkþ1 Þ

x
Pkþ1 ¼ Fkþ1 Pk FTkþ1 þ Q kþ1

Kalman if zkþ1 ;
filtering Rkþ1 ¼ diagð~rkþ1 Þ
Kkþ1 ¼ Pkþ1 HTkþ1 ðHkþ1 Pkþ1 HTkþ1 þ Rkþ1 Þ1
kþ1 þ Kkþ1 ðzkþ1  Hkþ1 x
xkþ1 ¼ x  kþ1 Þ
Pkþ1 ¼ ðI  Kkþ1 Hkþ1 ÞPkþ1
else
kþ1
xkþ1 ¼ x
Pkþ1 ¼ Pkþ1

2.1. MEMS IMU

Fig. 5. Results of the velocity and accelerometer bias estimation.

An Xsens MTi, which is a small, low-cost MEMS IMU, is used for

an inertial sensor and has a sensing range of ±300 deg/s (angular
rate) and ±2 g (acceleration). Fig. 2 shows the performance grade
positioning of IMU in [10] and MTi. Fig. 2 is originally defined by
Wang and Williams [13] and is added with performance marks
of LN-200 and MTi according to their performance specs. The sta-
bility performance of the inertial sensor used in this paper is
approximately a tenth of the IMUs conventionally used in geome-
try mapping such as the IMU of [10]. Generally, a tenth of the sta-
bility performance causes a much larger position error since the
accumulated position/orientation errors in dead reckoning naviga-
tion increase significantly over time.
The feasibility of MEMS accelerometers in the MTi was tested
by attaching it to the block of the linear motion guide and intro-
ducing 800 mm of reciprocating linear motion. Fig. 3 shows the
displacement of the MTi as computed by the double integration
of acceleration measurements. Displacement measurement by
the MTi is acceptable for approximately 5 s from the beginning,
and was disturbed slightly due to bias drift between 5 s and 15 s.

Fig. 6. Concept of geometry compensation.

216 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223

Fig. 7. Illustration of geometry compensation: (a) forward/backward estimation curves and (b) compensating procedure.

Afterwards, the MTi estimation deviated severely from the actual

displacement. Therefore, the MTi can perform independently as a
dead-reckoning sensor system for a very short period of time,
which is approximately 5 s, if the estimation of the initial bias is
exact. In the suggested tracking algorithm, the MTi performs as
an independent dead-reckoning sensor intermittently. The period
takes effect on the precision of tracking results but does not cause
any fatal error in the tracking algorithm.

2.2. Optical navigation sensor

An Avago Technologies ADNS6010 optical navigation sensor, is

usually applied to laser mice and is comprised of a 30  30 pixel
image sensor and a DSP for image processing. An optical navigation
sensor takes continuous snapshots of the surface and compares the
images to determine the distance and direction traveled. An optical
navigation sensor can be applied as an odometer and benefits from
Fig. 8. Dead reckoning sensor system on R/C car.
the fact that noncontact-type measurements do not experience the

Fig. 9. 3-D pipeline for experiments.

 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223
Fig. 10. 3-D pipeline mapping results of the (a) accelerometer and (b) optical navigation sensor without the sensor fusion.
slip ambiguity that plagues wheel-type odometers. However, an
optical navigation sensor sometimes fails to process the image of
the surface when the optical navigation sensor moves on mirrors,
glass, or glossy surfaces, or moves so fast that the sensor cannot
take continuous snapshots. Therefore, an optical navigation sensor
cannot be used independently as an odometer. However, the out-
age of the optical navigation sensor can be clearly detected and
treated more easily than slip error by the estimation algorithm.
For the laser mice, the optical system is comprised of a lens and
a laser diode (as an illumination source), and functions only when
the optical navigation sensor is 2–3 mm away from the surface. If
an optical navigation sensor is fitted to a mobile robot 2–3 mm
away from the surface, then the mobile robot should only move
on a smooth surface such, that the optical navigation sensor does
not conflict with a bumpy or inclined surface. Therefore, a new
optical system comprising of a micro lens and LEDs is designed
so that the optical navigation sensor is usable even when the opti-
cal navigation sensor is located 20–80 mm away from the surface.
The micro lens is the afocal lens that is used for the camera of the
cellular phone and has infinite field of depth without autofocus.
Fig. 11. Results of the sensor fusion.
217
But, the optical navigation sensor with the afocal lens may not
work properly at excessive height because the image sensor of
the optical navigation sensor has low resolution. Fig. 4 shows the
newly designed optical system.
3. Tracking algorithm
3.1. Multi-rate EKF algorithm
The EKF is the most popular recursive state estimator for non-
linear system, despite several shortcomings. The multi-rate sam-
pling method is applied to EKF for an asynchronous sensor
system that consists of sensors with different sampling rate by
Armesto et al. [14]. Multi-rate EKF is most suitable for the sensor
system proposed in this paper because the MEMS IMU and optical
navigation sensor have different sampling rates and the outage of
the optical navigation sensor occurs irregularly. Abnormal data
from the outage of the optical navigation sensor can be removed
by the multi-rate sampling method to prevent abnormal data from
Fig. 12. Results of the geometry compensation.
218 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223

disturbing proper state estimation. Table 1 shows that the process

of multi-rate EKF consists of measurement, prediction and Kalman
filtering steps.
The discrete model of states and measurements of this paper is
given by Eqs. (1)–(17)
xkþ1 ¼ f ðxk ; wk Þ ð1Þ
T T
xk ¼ ½ pT vT aT b qT xT k ð2Þ
0T T
wk ¼ ½ jT aT b k ð3Þ

xkþ1 ¼ Fk xk þ Gk wk ð4Þ
2 3
T2 3
I33 TI33 I
2 33
þ T6 ½xk  033 034 033
6 7
6 2 7
6 033
6 I33 TI33 þ T2 ½xk  033 034 033 7
7
6 7
6 033 033 I33 þ T½xk  033 034 033 7
6 7
Fk ¼ 6 7
6 033 033 033 I33 034 033 7
6 7
6 7
6   sin ðkxk k2Þ
T 7
6 043 043 043 043 cos kxk k T2 I44 X k 7
Fig. 13. Position error of the geometry compensation and forward estimation. 4 kxk k 5
033 033 033 033 033 I33
ð5Þ
2 3
3
T
I33 033 033
6 62 7
6T I
6 2 33 033 033 77
6 7
6 TI33 T½v k  033 7
Gk ¼ 6 7 ð6Þ
6 0
6 33 033 TI33 7
7
6 sin ðkxk kT2Þ
7
6 0
4 43 T
2 kxk k
Xk 033 75
033 TI33 033
2 3
0 xz xy
6 7
6 7
½xk  ¼ 6 xz 0 xx 7 ð7Þ
4 5
xy xx 0 k

2 3
0 vz v y
6 7
6 7
½v k  ¼ 6 v z 0 vx 7 ð8Þ
4 5
Fig. 14. Estimated velocity and optical navigation sensor. vy v x 0 k

Fig. 15. Estimated velocity and optical navigation sensor at (a) 48–52 s and (b) 60–68 s.
 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223 219

Fig. 16. Estimated states: (a) velocity, (b–d) acceleration and bias, (e) quaternion and (f) angular velocity.

2 3
q1 q2 q3 angular acceleration, and the derivative of bias. The full motion
6 7 model with noise are Eqs. (4)–(9) and detailed derivations are
6 q0 q3 q2 7
Xk ¼ 6
6 q
7 ð9Þ shown in the Section 3 of [14]. T is the sampling period.
4 3 q0 q1 7
5
q2 q1 q0 k zk ¼ hðxk Þ þ v k ¼ Hk x k þ v k ð10Þ
h iT
States, xk, consist of position, velocity, acceleration, acceleration T T
zk ¼ ½ zT1 zT2 zT3 k ¼ aTInertial xTInertial ddOptical ð11Þ
bias, quaternion, and angular rate. Plant noises, wk, consist of jerk, k
220 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223

2 3
aInertial ¼ aInertial;raw  ½qk1 gn ¼ a þ b ð12Þ 2q20  1 þ 2q21 2q1 q2  2q0 q3 2q1 q3 þ 2q0 q2
6 7
2 3 ½q ¼ 4 2q1 q2 þ 2q0 q3 2q20  1 þ 2q22 2q2 q3  2q0 q1 5 ð20Þ
2q20  1 þ 2q21 2q1 q2 þ 2q0 q3 2q1 q3  2q0 q2 2q1 q3  2q0 q2 2q2 q3 þ 2q0 q1 2q20  1 þ 2q23
6 7
6 7
½qk1  ¼ 6 2q1 q2  2q0 q3 2q20  1 þ 2q22 2q2 q3 þ 2q0 q1 7
4 5
pnkþ1 ¼ pnk þ ½qkþ1 dpbkþ1 ð21Þ
2q1 q3 þ 2q0 q2 2q2 q3  2q0 q1 2q20  1 þ 2q23 k1
ð13Þ Eqs. (18)–(21) give position in reference axes, pnkþ1 . The differential
displacement in reference axes, dpn, is obtained by transforming the
xInertial ¼ x ð14Þ differential displacement in body axes, dpb, to reference axes with
1 the rotation matrix, [qk+1], because pk in xk is position in body
ddOptical ¼ T v þ T 2 a ð15Þ axes.
2
The estimation of states with acceleration bias included is very
2 3 2 3
Hz1 033 033 I33 I33 033 033 useful for the dead-reckoning sensor system, since sufficiently ex-
6 7 6 7 act estimation of acceleration bias provides the proper estimation
6 7 6 I33 7
Hk ¼ 6 Hz2 7 ¼ 6 033 033 033 033 033 7 ð16Þ of velocity during the intermittent outages of the optical naviga-
4 5 4 5
T 2 tion sensor. As shown on Fig. 3, if outage duration of the optical
Hz3 k 033 TI33 2
I33 033 033 033 k
navigation sensor is less than 5 s and sufficiently exact acceleration
2 3 bias is given then the MEMS accelerometer can give proper velocity
r1 0  0
60 estimation without any assistance. Fig. 5 shows that the velocity is
6 r2 07
7 estimated successfully based on proper accelerometer bias estima-
rk Þ ¼ 6
Rk ¼ diagð~ 6 .. .. 7;
7 ð17Þ
4 . . 05 tion in spite of the outages of the optical navigation sensor.

0 0 0 rn k
3.2. Geometry compensation algorithm
where ~ rk ¼ ½~rTz1 ~ rTz3 Tk ¼ ½ r 1 r 2    rn Tk .
rTz2 ~
Measurements, zk, consist of the acceleration, aInertial, and angu-
The geometry compensation algorithm proposed in this paper
lar rates, xInertial, of the MEMS IMU and the displacement, ddOptical,
represents a method to reduce error in the position estimation
of the optical navigation sensor. aInertial is obtained by subtracting
by combining the two curves obtained from the forward and back-
the gravity in body axes from aInertial,raw that are raw outputs of
ward estimations with a geometric approaching method. For the
accelerometers. gn is the gravity in reference axes and qk1 is the
3-D pipeline mapping, for which start and end points are given,
complex conjugate of the orientation quaternion at the previous
the maximum position error of the method using both forward
step. ½qk1  is the rotation matrix which transforms from refer-
and backward estimations can be less than half of the method
ence to body axes. Hk is measurement model which represents
using only forward estimation or backward estimation because
the relationship between three measurement vectors and six state
vectors. Rk is the measurement noise covariance matrix.

dpbkþ1 ¼ pbkþ1  pbk ð18Þ

dpn ¼ ½qdpb ð19Þ

Fig. 18. Results of the sensor fusion.

Fig. 17. Asphalt pavement measurements from (a) isometric and (b) side views. Fig. 19. Results of the geometry compensation.
 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223
Fig. 20. Position error of the geometry compensation and forward estimation.
Fig. 21. Estimated velocity and optical navigation sensor.
the position error of dead reckoning navigation increases exponen-
tially over time and distance.
Fig. 22. Estimated velocity and optical navigation sensor at (a) 34–38 s and (b) 294–289 s.
221
General conceptual position error propagates as shown in
Fig. 6a. Maximum position error can be reduced by one forth with
a simple conjunction at the closest point between the results of
forward and backward estimations. However, for conjunction
using the quadratic Bezier curve, the maximum position error is
less than that of the simple conjunction and the continuity of the
estimated path improves.
The geometry compensation algorithm is implemented as
follows:
(1) Obtain the geometric curve from the forward estimations.
(2) Obtain the geometric curve from the backward estimations.
(3) Find a couple of closest points on the two curves respectively
and the middle point between the two points.
(4) Select p0, p1 and p2. p0 and p2 lies on the two estimation
curve respectively and are adequate distant from the clos-
est points. p1 is the middle point between the two closes
points.
(5) Construct the quadratic Bezier curve with p0, p1 and p2 using
the following:
pBezier ðtÞ ¼ ð1  tÞ2 p0 þ 2ð1  tÞtp1 þ t2 p2 ; t 2 ½0; 1 ð22Þ
(1) Construct the geometric compensation curve as the
following:
8
< pForward Estimation
> ½pStart ; p0 
n
p ¼ pBezer ½p0 ; p2  ð23Þ
>
:
pBackward Estimation ½p2 ; pEnd 
Fig. 7 shows the illustration of the geometry compensation
algorithm.
4. Experimental results
4.1. Experiment and estimation result in a 3-D pipeline
The dead-reckoning sensor system developed in this study
was tested with a radio-controlled (RC) car in a 3-D pipeline.
Fig. 8 shows the RC car equipped with the dead-reckoning
sensor system. Fig. 9 shows a pipeline whose inner diameter
was 450 mm, the total length is 24.46 m, which was con-
structed from PVC pipes and three transparent acryl pipes for
222 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223

Table 2
Odometer and position error.

Experiment Total length Estimated length Odometer error Position error forward/geometry comp.
3-D pipeline 24.46 m 24.51 m 0.05 m (0.2%) 0.72 m (2.9%)
0.22 m (1.0%)
Asphalt pavement 855.4 m 850.7 m 4.7 m (0.6%) 22.4 m (2.6%0)
7.1 m (0.8%)

Fig. 23. Estimated states: (a) velocity, (b–d) acceleration and bias, (e) quaternion and (f) angular velocity.
 D. Hyun et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 213–223
observation. From an overhead viewpoint, the shape of the
pipeline is ‘@’ and the length, width and height were 7.4 m,
9 m, and 2.4 m.
The RC car experienced many disturbances during the run. The
inner surface of the PVC pipe was slippery and the tires of the RC
car continuously experienced slip while driving up the inclined
pipes. It was difficult to control the RC car due to the opaque
PVC pipes resulting in sudden accelerations, braking and rapid
steering of the RC car at the corners of the pipeline. Additionally,
the intermittent acryl pipes disturb the optical navigation sensor.
As a result, the dead-reckoning sensor system experienced a diffi-
cult environment.
Figs. 10a and b represent the position estimation results
without sensor fusion. Specifically in Fig. 10b, the optical navi-
gation sensor loses considerable distance due to the transparent
acryl pipes and irregular driving, such that the length of esti-
mated path is much shorter than the actual length of the 3-D
pipeline.
Figs. 11 and 12 show estimation results of sensor fusion and
geometry compensation respectively. The sensor fusion algorithm
effectively combined the complementary characteristics of the
optical navigation sensor and inertial sensors, and the geometry
compensation algorithm reduced the position error of the esti-
mated 3-D pipeline. The position error in Fig. 13 is minimum dis-
tance between the reference points of the pipeline and estimated
path.
Figs. 14 and 15 show the velocity of the estimated states and the
optical navigation sensor measurements. Failures of the optical
navigation sensor measurements have occurred 79 times while
processing 13909 measurements. However, the velocity was esti-
mated smoothly during failures of the optical navigation sensor.
The tracking algorithm nearly exactly has reconstructed the lost
measurement by the optical navigation sensor.
Fig. 16 shows estimated states by the multi-rate EKF algorithm.
4.2. Experiment and estimation results on asphalt pavement
Long-range performance of the proposed system is demon-
strated on the asphalt pavement of a known path. The RC car
was driven equipped with the dead-reckoning sensor system on
the asphalt pavement, of which 89 points have been measured
with D-GPS and the total distance is 855.4 m. Fig. 17 shows the
path of the measured asphalt pavement (Fig. 17).
Figs. 18 and 19 show the estimation results of the sensor fusion
and geometry compensation. The estimation results of the test on
the asphalt pavement are similar to that of the test in the 3-D pipe-
line. The position error shown in Fig. 20 is similar to that of the test
in the 3-D pipeline.
Figs. 21 and 22 show the velocity of the estimated states and the
optical navigation sensor measurements. Failures of the optical
navigation sensor measurements have occurred 4092 times while
processing 33702 measurements (Figs. 21 and 22).
The proposed dead-reckoning sensor system and tracking algo-
rithm outputs consistent performance in both the experiments of
the 3-D pipeline and the asphalt pavement. Table 2 shows odome-
ter and position errors. The odometer error refers to the difference
between the total length and estimated length, and the position er-
ror refers to the maximum value of the position error in Figs. 12
and 18.
223
Fig. 23 shows estimated states by the multi-rate EKF algorithm.
Eqs. (22) and (23) shows selected values for R and Q matrix
based on experimental results
Q ¼ diag½ I13  1:5e2 I13  0:38 I13  0:5e  6  ð24Þ
R ¼ diag½ I13  0:1 I13  1e  5 I13  1e  8  ð25Þ
5. Conclusions and future work
The experiment has demonstrated that the dead-reckoning sen-
sor system, including the optical navigation sensor developed for
this study, functions successfully under difficult conditions, and
the tracking algorithm successfully has estimated the path of the
RC car. In particular, the tracking algorithm has combined redun-
dant and complementary measurements of the optical navigation
sensor and the low-cost MEMS IMU, and has restored displacement
of the optical navigation sensor measurements successfully.
Future research will aim to reduce the failure rate of the optical
navigation sensor measurements and produce the tracking algo-
rithm process in real time. Reduction of the optical navigation sen-
sor failure can be achieved by improving the optical system. Real-
time processing can be achieved by preventing orientation errors
that increase continuously over time. An additional algorithm
referring to the direction of the gravitational vector and odometers
on the right and left hand sides of the mobile robot can restrict the
orientation error within an appropriate range.
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