Using a structured beacon for cooperative position estimation

In an experiment in cooperative navigation, a mobile robot uses a smaller-size assistant as a local beacon during exploration runs in an office environment. The smaller robot carries a cylindrical target with a helicoidal light pattern: a `barber pole' beacon. The master robot tracks the beacon with a camera, analyzes the pattern comparing it to a geometrical model, and extracts approximate information on the relative position. The estimate is used as an additional inertial cue by a logic-based localization system, which fuses sensor data and abstract information, to produce a weighted place-recognition in a topological map.