Mobile robot sonar sensing with pseudo-random codes

One of the most severe problems in conventional mobile robot sonar sensing is from the literature known as crosstalk. This article addresses the crosstalk problem and presents first experimental results of a new approach which allows the simultaneous firing of sonar sensors. At the same time frequent misreadings caused by crosstalk or external ultrasound sources are eliminated. Moreover, the range resolution as well as the lateral resolution of a sonar sensor are significantly increased. This is achieved by carefully designing the emitted burst, i.e. by using appropriate pseudo-random sequences together with a matched filter technique.