Fundamental research on active object search via visual and UWB positioning

Abstract

Active object search (AOS) is an approach used in mobile robots for object search. Based on the type of sensors equipped on the robot, AOS methods can be broadly classified into those primarily relying on visual information, known as active visual search (AVS), and those leveraging RF positioning data. Existing research has proposed object search systems that integrate visual and RF information. By combining these two types of data, such systems mitigate the individual limitations of each approach, thereby improving the efficiency of object search. Nonetheless, when objects of identical appearance are located nearby within the search space, they become indiscernible, posing a significant challenge to the search process’s efficacy. This paper proposes a new AOS system that combines AVS with an indoor positioning system using ultra-wideband (UWB) to address this challenge. This approach enables efficient object search and ensures accurate identification of target objects, even when visually indistinguishable objects are located near one another. Experimental results show that the system can search for the target object regardless of the initial posture and can acquire the object’s three-dimensional appearance as voxel information. Furthermore, the system successfully identified the target object even when the experimenters placed a visually indistinguishable object beside it.