A modular architecture for mobile robots equipped with continuous-discrete observers

Abstract

We illustrate the design and development of a modular hardware/software system for multiple unicycle-like mobile robots localized via a set of camera modules. We describe the architecture and calibration of the hardware/software setup and then discuss two continuous-discrete observation laws for the distributed estimation of the robot positions. We show that a suitable model exploiting the onboard IMU measurements of the robots, enables obtaining an estimation error that is a cascade of two linear systems, for which we can show global exponential convergence to zero. The results are illustrated by our experimental tests.