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Removal of Specular Reflection and Cross Talk in Sonar for Precise and Accurate Range Measurements

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Abstract

Sonar sensor based range measurement for mobile robot mapping/perception of the complex environment is considered as proficient and low cost technique. Sonar sensor are employ for various applications such as autonomous navigation of mobile robot, underwater navigation and mapping, perception of shape and size of objects, etc. Different configurations are used in the past to mount the sonar sensors on the front/back/side of the mobile robots for the accurate and precise perception of the environment. The fast, precise and consistent sonar occupancy grid mapping is the key requirement for the various mobile robot applications which results in the use of multiple sonar sensors in the form of convex shape sonar rings mounted on mobile robot. Sonar rings provide fast mapping of the environment but, at the cost of low reliability, less precision and inconsistency in the occupancy grid due to specular reflection, false triggering synchronization and cross talk. This paper presents a novel technique for the construction of concave shape sonar rings called C-type arrangement (CTA) of sonar sensors which is derived from the analytical and mathematical study of convex type sonar sensor rings, circle geometry, trigonometry and Sonar sensor model. CTA approach is designed with an objective of examine metrological characteristic of multi sonar rings such as uncertainty, precision and error in range measurement. CTA technique reduce the uncertainties in sonar occupancy grid mapping due to specular reflection and cross talk for the application such as autonomous navigation, path planning, mapping, localization, etc. The proposed technique is experimentally verified in various real world experiments and enhanced results are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively that validate the reliability of the CTA technique. The CTA technique enhance the reliability in sonar sensor range measurement for the various robotics task like space exploration, mining, search and rescue operation, underwater surveillance etc.

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Abbreviations

\( S_{\text{Max}} \) :

Maximum sonar range in CTA

\( S_{\text{l}} \) :

Sonar length in cm

\( S_{\text{b}} \) :

Sonar breadth/width in cm

\( L*b*H \) :

Length * breadth * height

\( S_{1} \;{\text{to}}\;S_{n} \) :

Sonar sensor from 1 to n

\( P_{1} \;{\text{to}}\;P_{n} \) :

Position of sonar sensor \( S_{1} \;{\text{to}}\;S_{n} \)

CP:

Reference point (centre point of ring is consider as reference point

\( S01_{\text{TD}} \) :

Total distance between \( S_{0} \) and S1

\( S12_{\text{TD}} \) :

Total distance between S1 and S2

\( S_{{1{\text{ST}}}} \) :

Sonar to target distance

\( S_{\text{hl}} \) :

Half length of sonar in CTA techniques corresponding to sonar S1

\( S_{{{\text{h}}2}} \) :

Half length of sonar in CTA techniques corresponding to sonar S2

\( S_{\text{b}} \) :

Width of sonar in CTA techniques

S 1 :

Total length of sonar in CTA technique

A :

Half upper section of CTA ring

B :

Half lower section of CTA ring

\( S_{{1{\text{D}}}} \) :

Position w.r.t S0

P 1, P 2 and P 3 :

Position of sonar S1, S2 and S3 corresponding to different angles as ∆ABP

\( S_{{2{\text{D}}}} \) :

S2 position w.r.t S1

\( S_{{ 1 {\text{ST}}}} \) :

Distance between \( S_{1} \) and P point

S X :

Total distance between AX and Point P (hypotenuse) in ∆ABP

\( S_{{2{\text{ST}}}} \) :

Distance between \( S_{2} \) and P point

\( D_{\text{SS}} \) :

Distance between two proceeding sonar sensors

SR:

Sonar ring length

\( D_{{{\text{SS}}1}} \) :

Distance between two proceeding sonar sensors \( S_{0} \) and S1

\( D_{{{\text{SS}}2}} \) :

Distance between two proceeding sonar sensors S1 and S2

\( S_{{ 1 {\text{a}}}} \;{\text{and }}\;S_{{ 2 {\text{a}}}} \) :

Angular position of sonar S1 and S2 corresponding to ∆ABP

\( S_{{ 1 {\text{aa}}}} \;{\text{and}}\;S_{{ 2 {\text{aa}}}} \) :

Angular position of sonar S1 and S2 corresponding to AA an AA′

CTA:

C-type arrangement of sonar sensors

EKF:

Extended Kalman filter

ICP:

Iterative closest point

SLAM:

Simultaneously localization and mapping

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Acknowledgements

The proposed research is a part of Indo-Korean joint R&D project entitles “Real time shared autonomy system for the field mobile robot” (Project No. INT/Korea/P-25 dated 06/07/2015 supported under the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India.

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  1. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, India

    Ravinder Singh & K. S. Nagla

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  1. Ravinder Singh
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  2. K. S. Nagla
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Correspondence to Ravinder Singh.

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Singh, R., Nagla, K.S. Removal of Specular Reflection and Cross Talk in Sonar for Precise and Accurate Range Measurements. MAPAN 34, 31–42 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12647-018-0282-4

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