Basic study on a self-positioning technique

This paper presents a new self-positioning method, which can make a moving object be able to detect its position and orientation by itself without using any external references. In this method, a displacement sensor and an angle sensor are mounted on the moving object. While the object is moving, the sensors detect the displacement and the angle of the moving object relative to a target that is fixed in front of the moving object. The position and the orientation of the moving object can thus be obtained from the sensor outputs. When the object reaches the position of the target, it stops and carries the target to a new position. The moved distance and angle of the target is monitored by the sensors, and kept by a computer. Then the object starts to move again toward the target at the new position. By repeating this procedure, the position and orientation of the moving object in a wide movement range can be detected and controlled correctly. This method is applied to a newly developed small moving machine. Experimental results basically confirming the feasibility of the new method are presented.