Autonomous Navigation Based on Magnetic and Geometric Landmarks on Environmental Structure in Real World

For the Real World Robot Challenge (RWRC) 2013, a new task was established: every robot was required to search for designated persons. In this paper, therefore, we consider the difficulty of the task and construct a navigation strategy to achieve the task. To navigate a robot on the basis of the strategy, long distance navigation is necessary. We have developed a unique navigation method based on magnetic and geometric landmarks on environmental structures in various locations. This method allows a robot to robustly localize by evaluating the reliability of magnetic and geometric landmarks. By using this method, a robot can navigate stably, even if there are no existing landmarks to serve as objects. We achieved autonomous navigation over long distances and successfully searched out designated persons as the challenge of the RWRC2013. This paper presents our navigation method and discusses long distance navigation using the method.