Self-localization and navigation of holonomic mobile robot using omni-directional wheel odometry

This paper proposes a simple but effective self-localization and navigation algorithm for the omni-directional mobile robot equipped with three driving and three odometry wheels. Not only can this technique locates the robot's position, but it can also align its heading with respect to the selected target while navigating along the pre-defined trajectory. With a certain configuration of odometry omni-directional wheels, rotational readings from three encoders attached to these odometry wheels provide linear and angular velocities of the mobile robot. Integrating these velocities would result in position and heading of the mobile robot. As a result, the mobile robot becomes a complete holonomic system. Furthermore, navigation algorithm is illustrated for two cases namely point-to-point and multi-point schemes. Three experimental results are conducted to verify the effectiveness of this algorithm.