Indoor navigation plays an essential role in agricultural robots that operate in greenhouses. One of the most effective methods for indoor navigation is the spread spectrum sound (SS-sound) system. In this system, the time of arrival (ToA) of the spread spectrum modulated sound is used for localization. However, there is a near-far problem. Transmitting the SS-sound from multiple anchors using time division multiple access (TDMA) is adequate to solve the near-far problem. However, localization is impossible because the ToA from multiple anchors cannot be simultaneously acquired. To solve this problem, a method for combining the SS-sound system with TDMA and an inertial navigation system is proposed in this study. The effectiveness of the proposed method was demonstrated through numerical simulations of a ground robot and experimentally using a crawler robot.
Spread Spectrum Sound with TDMA and INS Hybrid Navigation System for Indoor Environment