Indoor mobile robot control for environment information gleaning

Information of environment has substantial importance for mobile robot navigation. Sensors are important sources of information of the global environmental conditions. Ultrasonic sensors are known as robust and cheap distance sensors suitable for this application. In this paper, a mobile microrobot using an ultrasonic range finder for local map building is described. The data collected by range finder from any fixed point are limited by the physical properties of ultrasound waves. Only those parts of surfaces are detected for which the impact wave direction appears at right angles. Therefore, the sensor data from different positions must be combined to obtain complete representation of the environment. In this paper an algorithm of map completion is presented. Experimental results are also presented.