Linux-based Real Time Monitoring System of Mobile Robots

Real time monitoring is necessary for the dynamic obstacle avoidance and trajectory tracking of mobile robots. However there are several problems in implementing a real time operating system: (1) it is expensive to develop since a high license fee is required and (2) standards for the real-time systems are not well-established yet. For an educational system under these difficulties, a Linux-based real time system is possible to receive the display data with the minimum time delay by the kernel compiling to fit to the user system, Notice that Windows OS is suffering from code bloating phenomena, which may result in a long operation time. An i-BOT is developed for a demonstration system to show the localization schemes using the RFID and ultrasonic sensors, named as iGS (indoor GPS). An RFID is designated to synchronize the transmitter and receiver of the ultrasonic signal, and the traveling time of the ultrasonic signal has been used to calculate the distance from the iGS to a mobile robot, which can be utilized to analyze the localization performance