Analysis of a robot positioning system based on a rotating receiver, beacons, and coded signals

Positioning is a fundamental issue in mobile robot applications that can be achieved in multiple ways. Among these methods, triangulation with active beacons is widely used, robust, accurate, and flexible. In this paper, we analyze the performance of an original system, introduced in a one of our previous papers, that comprises a rotating receiver and beacons that send an On-Off Keying modulated infrared signal. The probability density function of the measured angles is established and discussed. In particular, it is shown that the proposed estimator is a non biased estimator of the beacon angular position. We also evaluate the theoretical results by means of both a simulator and measurements.