A Simple Real-Time Mobile Robot Tracking System

Abstract

In many robotics applications it is necessary to record precisely how a mobile robot moves around in its environment. This is for instance the case when we want to compare robot behavior with animal behavior, when we want to compare robot behavior in different environments, and when we want to compare behavior in simulated and real robots. For this purpose, we have built a video tracking system using the Matrox Meteor Frame-grabber. By placing a camera above an arena and putting light on top of a mobile robot, we are able to track the movements of the robot using the tracking algorithm described in this paper