Edge-Based Infrared-Ultrasonic Anti-Collision Radar System for Robotic Navigation: *Applications of Cost-effective Bisensory System for Obstacle Detection, Tracking, and Avoidance

Significant progress has been made in the development of an edge computing system for the fusion, representation, and visualization of dual-sensor data for obstacle avoidance control of mobile robots. This involves the use of an error-filtering covariance and averaging algorithm to logically fuse distance measurements from a pair of infrared and ultrasonic sensors, which was instrumented into a robot and used to generate radar visuals to track the proximity of ambient obstacles within 180 degrees spanning ahead of the robot. Hands-on experiments were performed to evaluate the performance and applicability of the system in real-time. The results show that the developed system is viable and robust. In line with the emerging field of edge computing, this work is an efficient, portable, and cost-effective approach to developing mobile robotic systems.