A Localization Algorithm for Mobile Robots in RFID system
Liu Jing
Faculty of Computer Science
South-Central University For Nationalities
Wuhan, China
cris_1210@mail.scuec.edu.cn
Abstract: This paper presents an efficient localization
algorithm for an indoor mobile robot using the RFID
system. The mobile robot carries a RFID reader at the
bottom of the mobile robot, which reads the RFID tags on
the floor to localize the mobile robot. Each RFID tag stores
its own unique position which is used to calculate the
position of the mobile robot. In this paper, a SLAM
(Simultaneously Localization and Mapping) algorithm is
proposed to extend into RFID system for positioning and
localization. Though the experiments, this algorithm has
been proved to successfully achieve the mobile object
position estimation and tracking in 2D range by using
known RFID data.
Keywords: SLAM; Localization; Mobile robot
1. INTRODUCTION
The localization is very important issue for indoor mobile
robot to move autonomously to the goal position. A mobile
robot can not execute all operations related with the
navigation without the localization information. As a mobile
robot moves around its environments, its actual position and
orientation always differs from the position and orientation
that it is commanded to hold.
An RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) technology is
a non-touch recognition system that transmits and processes
the information on events and environments using a wireless
frequency and small chips [1]. The RFID system can
recognize at high-speed and send data within various
distances. Therefore, the application of RFID technology has
been increased and an RFID has been applied for the robot
technology recently [2][3]. G. Kantor and S. Singh [4] [5]
used the RFID system for mapping. They rely on active
beacons which provide distance information based on the
time required to receive the response of a tag. D. Hahnel, W.
Burgard and D. Fox studied to improve the localization with
a pair of RFID antennas. They presented a probabilistic
measurement model for RFID readers that allow them to
accurately localize RFID tags in the environment [1]. If an
RFID technology is properly applied for the robot, the
services for the users can be provided by the service robot at
anytime at any places. The passive RFID technology has
been utilized for the researches to recognize the position of
the service robot [6]. There is a method that RFID passive
tags are arranged on the floor to provide the absolute
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Po.Yang
Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Technology
Staffordshire University
Staffordshire, United Kingdom
p.yang@staffs.ac.uk
position data, which are free from the problems of
conventional systems [7][8].
In this work, the problem of acquire position
information is implemented by a SLAM algorithm, which
achieve more efficient localization. SLAM stands for
Simultaneously Localization and Mapping, which has been a
fundamental topic in robotic and mobile computing
communities. A typical process of SLAM can be described
as: a robot or mobile device starts from unknown location in
an unknown environment and it concurrently builds the map
of the environment while at the same time uses the map to
localize itself. SLAM has great potentials since it would be
extended into positioning and tracking system based on
sensor network. In order to reach the SLAM goal, there are
various approaches. Particle filters [9] are a Monte Carlo
sampling method, which implements the theoretical
Bayesian Filter. Compared with other filter like Kalman
Filter [10] or Extended Kalman Filter, it provides the ability
to solve non-linear estimation problems robustly. Its
excellent performance in a dynamic system has therefore
drawn great research interest in recent years. However, its
computational complexity has been a barrier for high-
dimensional estimation problems like SLAM.
In this paper, we propose an efficient SLAM algorithm
based on RFID system to solve the 2D range-only
localization for mobile robot. Though the experiments, this
algorithm has been proved to successfully achieve the
mobile robot position estimation and tracking in 2D range
by using known RFID data.
2. RFID SYSTEM FOR MOBILE ROBOT
LOCALIZATION
In order to estimate the location of the robot using RFID
techniques, RFID tags are arranged in a fixed pattern on the
floor as shown in Fig 1. Absolute coordinates of the location
should be stored in each tag to provide the position data to
the mobile robot. An RFID reader is step up to read the tag
data on the bottom of the mobile robot. As the robot moves
and stays on any tag, the RF field is formed by RFID reader.
And the RFID reader would get the unique Tag position ID.
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 Y RFID Tag
X
Figure 1: RFID Localization system
When the localization process starts, the RFID reader
gathers the position data of the tags under the effective area
of antenna In order to receive other tag data within the
recognizable area of the RF reader, the tag data previously
read are stored to the PC. Then, the reader can receive the
next tag information, and repeats this procedure until there is
no unread tag left within the RF field. But in our research
work, we only consider the situation on the RFID reader
process one RFID tag position information.
3. SIMULTANEOUS LOCALIZATION AND MAPPING
Previous Section focuses mainly on localization which
deals with the problem of trying to find the basic location of
the robot based on RFID system. However, if we use the
RFID techniques, the accuracy of the position and
localization is related to the distance between RFID tags and
also other hardware performance very much. So sometimes
it limits the usage of the system, we propose the SLAM
algorithm in RFID system since it only need some basic
information and could predict the tracking and position.
In the localization problem, it is obvious that map plays a
vital role. Normally the map is from a Mapping process that
builds a model of the surrounded environments. And this
process can be performed either by the robot or by human
(e.g. manually measure the environment by hand).
The real challenge is to perform localization when the
map is uncertain. As stated before, combining the process of
localization with mapping brings the problem of SLAM. A
typical process of SLAM can be described as follows: The
robot (or mobile device) starts from an unknown location,
without or with only partial priori information of the
environment. From a continuous observation of the
environment (using various kind of sensors), it
simultaneously builds the map and at the same time uses the
map to estimates the location of itself (Figure 2).While
keeps moving on, the robot lastly builds a complete map of
environment and based on it to provide accurate localization.
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Figure 2 The SLAM problem
Usually the map representing the environment may be a
geometric map, a map of landmarks (sometimes called
features) or a map of occupancy [11]. It depends on the
specific application and algorithm. In this paper, we are
using the map of features. Each of the features represents
one sensor point in a sensor network. Compared with the
pure localization, SLAM provides a robotic system the
ability to operate in an unknown environment, which yields
great potentials.
4. ALGORITHMS OVERVIEW
In our algorithm, the basic idea is to initially define four
features point in the 2D location environment, which is the
predefined RFID tags, A(0,0), B(6,0), C(6,3), D(0.3).meter.
Then when the RFID reader detect the possible RFID tag in
the environment, it reports a point E(x, y), the distance
between each tags is 0.2m, the while environment is about X
between (0, 9) meters, Y between (-10, 5) meters, at that
time, we can get the different distance between the RFID
reader and feature points. In such a case, it is a SLAM
problem just mentioned before, and we can use our SLAM
algorithm to solve it.
4.1 Problem Statement
Localization deals with the problem of trying to find the
location of the robot, given a map and some sensor reading
data. Mapping is the process of building and maintaining a
model of the surrounded environments. During the past
several decades, the first paradigm is called model-based in
1970s. The design of robotic systems focused on path
planning, control problems [12]. Such systems assume that
the information of the environment is fully provided, and the
navigation, controlling approaches in such systems are all
deterministic. In the 1980’s, the Brook [13]’s behavior-
based architecture becomes more popular. Main features of
behavior-based systems are that they are reactive.
Nevertheless, behavior-based system is also under the
assumption that the world model is perfectly constructed.
The last paradigm emerged since mid 1990s, which is still
under rapid developing, is usually termed probabilistic
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robotics [14]. Therefore, rather than trying to ‘determine’ an
optimal solution, by integrating some probabilistic laws, it
attempts to ‘estimate’ the solutions.
Most of the localization and mapping techniques have
gone probabilistic since then, almost all the state-of-art
robotic system are based on probabilistic techniques, not
only on the level of motion modeling and observation
modeling [15]. Thus, in this paper, the particle filter method
is also based on the probabilistic techniques.
4.2 System State and Model
There are two models that need to be implemented,
namely the observation model and motion model. Their
specific implementation is characterized by the nature of the
sensor system.
4.2.1 System State
As the name - 2D SLAM suggests, the state space where
this SLAM algorithm operates is two-dimensional. Hence all
the features in the map as well as the location of the robot
can be represented by Cartesian coordinates. The feature
points and the location state which represents the position of
RFID reader are denoted as:
ª st º
«f »
ªx f º ª xs º
xt = « »
1,t
fn = « » s=« »
¬y f ¼ ¬ ys ¼ «... »
« »
«¬ f n ,t »¼
Feature state Location state System state
4.2.2 Observational Model
The observation model tells the probability of obtaining
a particular sensor reading at a certain location state.
Recalling the theory of Bayes Filter, this is defined as a
probabilistic distribution: Pr( s t | d t ) , s and d are the
location state and sensor reading, respectively. The straight
observation model is given by the following equation:
ds = g(fs,s) = (xf- xs)2 + (yf- ys)2 + w (1)
Where x f is the coordinate of a frame, x s is the coordinate
of the robot, d is the relative distance from the robot to
feature n and w is the Gaussian noise characterizing the
errors of the sensors. At each time step, the robot will
receive observation information from all features. Figure 3 is
example showing the robot measuring the distance from
three features at the same time. Although in practice the
robot may receive observation of each feature one by one,
this SLAM solution can be easily modified to cope with
such situation.
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Figure 3 The straight observation model
4.3.2 Motion Model
The motion model characterizes the robot’s location
states over time. It helps to predict the next location state
given the most current one. When implementing the motion
model, we have to consider the characteristics of the motion
kinematics of the target object. The target object may change
their direction or speed of the movement randomly. Thus we
use 2D Gaussian model to approximate the motion. More
specifically, when given the location state at the time step
t, to predict the location state at the time t+1, we draw a
number of particles randomly from a 2D Gaussian with
zero-mean. These particles will form a circle with origin at
St and its radius is decided by the standard deviation of the
2D Gaussian.
4.3 Particle Filter Algorithm
Each particle has 2(n+1) state: 2 location states and 2n
feature states. In a mathematical form, each particle is :
X mt = (s mt , f1,tm , f 2,t
m
,...f n,tm )
(2)
= ((x, y)mt , (x, y)1,t
m
, (x, y) m2,t ,...(x, y) mn,t )
Where the superscript m is the index of the particle, the
m
subscript t indicates the time step, s t is the location of the
m
robot and, f n,t represents feature n. The particle filter
m
algorithm is then operating on a set of particles x t . Each
iteration of the algorithm can be divided into the following
stages: Initialization, Apply motion model. Apply
observation model and weight all the particles, Resampling.
If the predicted location state (x s , ys ) ' and feature state
(x f 1 , yf 1 ) is very close to the real states. Then the predicted
observation d ' will be very close to the real observation.
Hence this particle will have a high weight. In a
probabilistic math form, the weight of each particle is given
by:
w m = ³ Pr(d t | f n ,s mt ) Pr(f n | s 0:m t-1 , d 0: t-1 ) df n (3)
Where the superscript m is the index of the particle,
subscript t is time step, f n is feature n, and d t is the
observation. Equation 3 is implemented by calculating the
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real observation d t under a Gaussian with mean dt ' and
standard deviation σ determined by the observation noise.
More specifically, the weight of each particle is calculated
using the following equation:
(d-d')2
1/ 2 -
w=³ (2πσ )
2
e 2σ 2 (4)
all features
5. EXPERIMENT RESULTS
In this experiment a dataset simulated with 40 steps time
is used, to test the stability of this algorithm. Result is shown
in Figure path estimation with enough time steps. And
Figure 4 illustrates the estimation error on path over time. It
demonstrates an experiment result in which the estimated
path (the blue line) is ‘rotated’ relative to the real path (the
grey dashed line). We can see that, however, the ‘shape’ of
the blue line is very similar to the grey line, which means
that the path estimation is still accurate. Figure 5 shows
that the errors of X and Y is reduced over time and be little
finally. It shows that the algorithms could achieve the
localization goal.
Figure 4 Localization results
Figure 5 X,Y errors estimation
6. CONCLUSION
This paper propose a localization algorithm in a RFID
based system, which could achieve the position estimation
and tracking for robot mobile in RFID system. The
approaches do not require the reduced distance between
RFID tags to improve the accuracy. It based on a predicted
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model to estimate the position for mobile robot, the
experiment results shows that it is efficient. In future work,
the more SLAM algorithms would be investigated into RFID
application.
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