MUSSE: A designed multi-ultrasonic-sensor system for echolocation on multiple robots

This paper presents a multi-ultrasonic-sensor system designed for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) on the open source robot Kobuki Turtlebot. The operating system used in this research project, Robot Operating System (ROS), is also an open source project initially released in 2007. Our system has reduced response time and lower cost than traditional laser sensors. It consists of 8 HY-SRF05 rangers that can work sequentially on an embedded system such as a Raspberry Pi. The communication between the embedded system and the robot is achieved with a Python package that communicates via local TCP/IP. Our multi-sensor structure can be applied to a multi-agent system, composed of 3 identical robots. Our results from preliminary experiments show the possibility of conducting SLAM using our designed system. By implementing this improved design on a multi-agent system, the SLAM process can be conducted more efficiently and accurately than a single robot with a laser sensor.