Research On Mobile Robot Outdoor Localization Based On GPS/GPRS

Mobile robot localization is one of the important research direction of robots, and is also the key to achieve autonomous navigation. It has the vital significance in the robot intelligence development. This paper designs a program of outdoor mobile robot positioning system based on GPS/GPRS, which combines GPS’s higher precision, better real-time and the timing of GPRS packet switching technology together, and achieves robot monitoring and management through the PC monitoring center.First, through system analysis, this paper gives a overall design of the system. The system is divided into different functional modules. The mobile terminal embeded GPS/GPRS modules as well as ARM11 microprocessor as the control center. This paper designs a program that mobile robot terminal collects and analyses the location information, then transmits the analysed information to the PC monitoring center via wireless data network.Second, the system platform is built, including Ubuntu installation, building the cross-compilation tools, establishing document mounting environment, porting the kernel and designing serial driver. In order to achieve the function, this paper designs software for the GPS/GPRS modules, accomplishes communication between serials and moudules,receives location information and realizes data transmission through a wireless data transmission network.Third, this paper gives implementation of each function for PC monitoring center. Qt GUI development tools was used to develop a monitoring interface that was not only simple and clear, but also easy operatiing. This monitoring interface can get real-time location information and display Google Maps by Javascript technology.It makes the location information more intuitive and more clear. In addition, the monitoring interface also contained a control platform. According to it,the mobile robot’s speed and direction are controled by the monitoring center.Finally, the whole system has been tested. Experimental results show that the system can work properly and the positioning data achieves the desired effect. This system has good scalability and portability, and it can be applied to different mobile platforms.