Adaptive Fading Extended Kalman Filtering for Mobile Robot Localization Using a Doppler–Azimuth Radar

Abstract

In this paper, the localization problem of a mobile robot equipped with a Doppler–azimuth radar (D–AR) is investigated in the environment with multiple landmarks. For the type (2,0) robot kinematic model, the unknown modeling errors are generally aroused by the inaccurate odometer measurement. Meanwhile, the inaccurate odometer measurement can also give rise to a type of unknown bias for the D–AR measurement. For reducing the influence induced by modeling errors on the localization performance and enhancing the practicability of the developed robot localization algorithm, an adaptive fading extended Kalman filter (AFEKF)-based robot localization scheme is proposed. First, the robot kinematic model and the D–AR measurement model are modified by considering the impact caused by the inaccurate odometer measurement. Subsequently, in the frame of adaptive fading extended Kalman filtering, the way to the addressed robot localization problem with unknown biases is sought out and the stability of the developed AFEKF-based localization algorithm is also discussed. Finally, in order to testify the feasibility of the AFEKF-based localization scheme, three different kinds of modeling errors are considered and the comparative simulations are conducted with the conventional EKF. From the comparative simulation results, it can be seen that the average localization error under the developed AFEKF-based localization scheme is [0.0245 m0.0224 m0.0039 rad]T and the average localization errors using the conventional EKF are [1.0405 m2.2700 m0.1782 rad]T, [0.4963 m0.3482 m0.0254 rad]T and [0.2774 m0.3897 m0.0353 rad]T, respectively, under the three cases of the constant bias, the white Gaussian stochastic bias and the bounded uncertainty bias.