阅读说明：本技术 一种定位方法及装置和机器人 (Positioning method and device and robot ) 是由 崔乐 陈一鸣 李名杨 于 2019-03-07 设计创作，主要内容包括：本申请公开了一种定位方法及装置和机器人,定位方法包括：需要定位的设备开机时获取自身第一位置信息；在位置信息更新时刻到来时,根据第一位置信息和获得的位置变化信息确定需要定位的设备的当前位置信息。本申请通过对需要定位的设备开机时初始位置的计算,保证了后续对需要定位的设备定位的准确性,实现了稳定的设备定位。(The application discloses a positioning method, a positioning device and a robot, wherein the positioning method comprises the following steps: acquiring first position information of equipment needing positioning when the equipment is started; and when the moment of updating the position information comes, determining the current position information of the equipment needing to be positioned according to the first position information and the obtained position change information. According to the method and the device, the initial position of the device to be positioned when the device is started is calculated, so that the accuracy of subsequent positioning of the device to be positioned is ensured, and stable device positioning is realized.)

1. A method of positioning, comprising:

acquiring first position information of equipment needing positioning when the equipment is started;

and when the moment of updating the position information comes, determining the current position information of the equipment needing to be positioned according to the first position information and the obtained position change information.

2. The positioning method according to claim 1, wherein the obtaining of the first location information of the device to be positioned when the device to be positioned is powered on comprises:

the equipment needing to be positioned acquires first position information of the equipment needing to be positioned according to ultra-wideband UWB data or visual matching information;

alternatively, the first location information includes: and presetting the possible position information of the device needing positioning.

3. The positioning method according to claim 1, wherein after the first location information is acquired and before the determining the current location information of the device requiring positioning, the method further comprises:

randomly distributing particles in a preset range of the first position information, wherein each particle represents a pose;

the equipment needing to be positioned obtains the position change information of the equipment needing to be positioned by using a chassis wheel speed meter; or the equipment needing to be positioned calculates the position change information according to the laser information;

the first position information of each particle is redistributed according to the position change information.

4. The positioning method according to claim 3, wherein the determining the current position information of the device needing positioning according to the initial position information and the estimated position change information comprises:

when the position information updating moment comes, calculating the matching degree of the received laser or visual signal and a corresponding map according to the position change information estimated at the moment and the first position information of each particle; or, when the position information updating time comes, calculating the likelihood degree of the received UWB signal according to the position change information estimated at this time and the first position information of each particle;

and calculating the estimated value of the current position of the equipment needing to be positioned by utilizing the obtained matching degree or the likelihood degree according to the Monte Carlo principle.

5. The positioning method according to claim 1, the method further comprising: the time of all sensors of the device to be located is aligned.

6. The positioning method according to claim 5, wherein the aligning of the time of all sensors of the device to be positioned comprises:

adding the received sensor information into corresponding processing queues of various sensors;

any one of the used sensors is used as a time trigger, when the data in the processing queue of the sensor is detected, the data is added into the queue to be processed as the data to be processed, and whether the data of other sensors is received between the data to be processed and the previous frame of data is determined according to the time stamp of the data to be processed;

and if the data of other sensors are received, adding the data serving as the data to be processed into a queue to be processed, and executing the step of determining the current position information of the equipment to be positioned according to the sequence of the time stamps of the data to be processed in the queue to be processed.

7. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing the positioning method of any one of claims 1 to 6.

8. An apparatus for implementing information sharing, comprising a memory and a processor, wherein the memory has stored therein the following instructions executable by the processor: for performing the steps of the positioning method according to any one of claims 1 to 6.

9. A robot, comprising: a positioning device, and any combination of the following sensors that output data to the positioning device: a sensor providing laser information, a sensor providing visual information, a sensor providing UWB data;

wherein, positioner includes: the device comprises a preprocessing module and a positioning module; wherein the content of the first and second substances,

the preprocessing module is used for acquiring first position information of the robot when the robot is started;

and the positioning module is used for determining the current position information of the robot according to the first position information and the obtained position change information when the position information updating moment comes.

10. The robot of claim 9, wherein the preprocessing module is specifically configured to:

acquiring the first position information at the robot according to UWB data or visual matching information; alternatively, the first position information includes predetermined position information in which the robot may be present.

11. The robot of claim 9, the positioning module further to:

randomly distributing particles in a preset range around a first position corresponding to the first position information, wherein each particle represents a pose; estimating position change information of the robot by using wheel speed meter information calculated by a chassis wheel speed meter or laser information; the first position information of each particle is redistributed according to the position change information.

12. The robot of claim 11, wherein the positioning module is specifically configured to:

calculating a matching degree of the received laser or visual signal with a corresponding map or calculating a likelihood degree of the received UWB signal, based on the position change information estimated at this time and the first position information of each particle, each time the robot receives laser, visual, or UWB data; and calculating an estimated value of the current position of the robot by using the obtained matching degree or the likelihood degree according to the Monte Carlo principle.

13. The robot of claim 9, further comprising: a synchronization module to align the time of all sensors of the robot.

14. The robot of claim 13, the synchronization module being specifically configured to:

adding the received sensor information into corresponding processing queues of various sensors;

any sensor in the used sensors, such as laser, is used as a time trigger, when the data in a processing queue of the sensor is detected, the data is added into the queue to be processed as the data to be processed, and whether the data of other sensors is received between the data to be processed and the previous frame of data is determined according to the time stamp of the data to be processed;

and if the data of other sensors are received, adding the data serving as the data to be processed into a queue to be processed, and determining the current position information of the equipment to be positioned according to the sequence of the time stamps of the data to be processed in the queue to be processed.

Technical Field

The present application relates to, but not limited to, intelligent control technologies, and in particular, to a positioning method and apparatus, and a robot.

Background

With the development of new retail business, more and more service robots with logistics function are applied to various business scenes, and become an important link for people, goods, warehouses and field connection. The robot needs to complete various business processes, and a stable and accurate robot positioning and navigation scheme is needed to solve the problems of 'where' and 'where to go' of the robot.

The traditional robot positioning scheme using laser to perform positioning has high positioning accuracy under ideal conditions, but is sensitive to interference of people and obstacles, so that the positioning is unstable, and the positioning failure of the robot is very easy to cause. That is, for some commercial scenes with many people, fast scene change and unpredictable characteristics, such as complex indoor environments of restaurants, shopping malls, hotels and the like, the robot adopting the traditional positioning mode is obviously not applicable.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a positioning method and device and a robot, which can realize stable positioning.

The embodiment of the invention provides a positioning method, which comprises the following steps:

acquiring first position information of equipment needing positioning when the equipment is started;

and when the moment of updating the position information comes, determining the current position information of the equipment needing to be positioned according to the first position information and the obtained position change information.

Optionally, the obtaining of the first location information of the device that needs to be located when the device is powered on includes:

the equipment needing to be positioned acquires first position information of the equipment needing to be positioned according to ultra-wideband UWB data or visual matching information;

alternatively, the first location information includes: and presetting the possible position information of the device needing positioning.

Optionally, after the first location information is acquired and before the current location information of the device requiring positioning is determined, the method further includes:

randomly distributing particles in a preset range of the first position information, wherein each particle represents a pose;

the equipment needing to be positioned obtains the position change information of the equipment needing to be positioned by using a chassis wheel speed meter; or the equipment needing to be positioned calculates the position change information according to the laser information;

the first position information of each particle is redistributed according to the position change information.

Optionally, the determining current location information of the device to be located according to the initial location information and the estimated location change information includes:

when the position information updating moment comes, calculating the matching degree of the received laser or visual signal and a corresponding map according to the position change information estimated at the moment and the first position information of each particle; or, when the position information updating time comes, calculating the likelihood degree of the received UWB signal according to the position change information estimated at this time and the first position information of each particle;

and calculating the estimated value of the current position of the equipment needing to be positioned by utilizing the obtained matching degree or the likelihood degree according to the Monte Carlo principle.

Optionally, the method further comprises: the time of all sensors of the device to be located is aligned.

Optionally, the aligning time of all sensors of the device to be located includes:

adding the received sensor information into corresponding processing queues of various sensors;

any one of the used sensors is used as a time trigger, when the data in the processing queue of the sensor is detected, the data is added into the queue to be processed as the data to be processed, and whether the data of other sensors is received between the data to be processed and the previous frame of data is determined according to the time stamp of the data to be processed;

and if the data of other sensors are received, adding the data serving as the data to be processed into a queue to be processed, and executing the step of determining the current position information of the equipment to be positioned according to the sequence of the time stamps of the data to be processed in the queue to be processed.

The present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing any of the above positioning methods.

The present application further provides an apparatus for implementing information sharing, including a memory and a processor, where the memory stores the following instructions executable by the processor: for performing the steps of the positioning method of any of the above.

The application further provides a robot, comprising: a positioning device, and any combination of the following sensors that output data to the positioning device: a sensor providing laser information, a sensor providing visual information, a sensor providing UWB data;

wherein, positioner includes: the device comprises a preprocessing module and a positioning module; wherein the content of the first and second substances,

the preprocessing module is used for acquiring first position information of the robot when the robot is started;

and the positioning module is used for determining the current position information of the robot according to the first position information and the obtained position change information when the position information updating moment comes.

Optionally, the preprocessing module is specifically configured to:

acquiring the first position information at the robot according to UWB data or visual matching information; alternatively, the first position information includes predetermined position information in which the robot may be present.

Optionally, the positioning module is further configured to:

randomly distributing particles in a preset range around a first position corresponding to the first position information, wherein each particle represents a pose; estimating position change information of the robot by using wheel speed meter information calculated by a chassis wheel speed meter or laser information; the first position information of each particle is redistributed according to the position change information.

Optionally, the positioning module is specifically configured to:

calculating a matching degree of the received laser or visual signal with a corresponding map or calculating a likelihood degree of the received UWB signal, based on the position change information estimated at this time and the first position information of each particle, each time the robot receives laser, visual, or UWB data; and calculating an estimated value of the current position of the robot by using the obtained matching degree or the likelihood degree according to the Monte Carlo principle.

Optionally, the robot further comprises: a synchronization module to align the time of all sensors of the robot.

Optionally, the synchronization module is specifically configured to:

adding the received sensor information into corresponding processing queues of various sensors;

any sensor in the used sensors, such as laser, is used as a time trigger, when the data in a processing queue of the sensor is detected, the data is added into the queue to be processed as the data to be processed, and whether the data of other sensors is received between the data to be processed and the previous frame of data is determined according to the time stamp of the data to be processed;

and if the data of other sensors are received, adding the data serving as the data to be processed into a queue to be processed, and determining the current position information of the equipment to be positioned according to the sequence of the time stamps of the data to be processed in the queue to be processed.

The application includes: acquiring first position information of equipment needing positioning when the equipment is started; and when the moment of updating the position information comes, determining the current position information of the equipment needing to be positioned according to the first position information and the obtained position change information. According to the method and the device, the initial position of the device to be positioned when the device is started is calculated, so that the accuracy of subsequent positioning of the device to be positioned is ensured, and stable device positioning is realized.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the claimed subject matter and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the subject matter and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the subject matter and not to limit the subject matter.

FIG. 1 is a schematic flow chart of a positioning method of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of the positioning device of the present application.

Detailed Description

To make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present application more apparent, embodiments of the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present application may be arbitrarily combined with each other without conflict.

In one exemplary configuration of the present application, a computing device includes one or more processors (CPUs), input/output interfaces, a network interface, and memory.

The memory may include forms of volatile memory in a computer readable medium, Random Access Memory (RAM) and/or non-volatile memory, such as Read Only Memory (ROM) or flash memory (flash RAM). Memory is an example of a computer-readable medium.

Computer-readable media, including both non-transitory and non-transitory, removable and non-removable media, may implement information storage by any method or technology. The information may be computer readable instructions, data structures, modules of a program, or other data. Examples of computer storage media include, but are not limited to, phase change memory (PRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), other types of Random Access Memory (RAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM), Digital Versatile Discs (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other non-transmission medium that can be used to store information that can be accessed by a computing device. As defined herein, computer readable media does not include non-transitory computer readable media (transient media), such as modulated data signals and carrier waves.

The steps illustrated in the flow charts of the figures may be performed in a computer system such as a set of computer-executable instructions. Also, while a logical order is shown in the flow diagrams, in some cases, the steps shown or described may be performed in an order different than here.

Fig. 1 is a schematic flow chart of the positioning method of the present application, as shown in fig. 1, including:

step 100: and acquiring first position information of the equipment needing to be positioned when the equipment is started.

In an exemplary embodiment, obtaining the own first location information may include:

the device to be positioned automatically obtains the first position information (i.e. the position information that can appear) of the device to be positioned according to Ultra Wide Band (UWB) data or visual matching information.

In one illustrative example, the first location information comprises: position information that may be present for a device that needs to be positioned, such as a robot, is predefined.

In an exemplary embodiment, obtaining location information of a device to be located that may be present may include:

for a device equipped with a UWB module (including a UWB tag and a UWB base station), after the device to be located is powered on, stable UWB location information (for example, obtained by averaging data in a time period) is received as the first location information.

In an exemplary embodiment, obtaining location information of a device to be located that may be present may include:

for equipment which uses a monocular camera to obtain visual information, after the equipment which needs to be positioned is started, characteristics are extracted from a current image obtained by the monocular camera, the extracted characteristics are matched with the characteristics in a visual map, and the position information which is obtained by matching and corresponds to the characteristics in the visual map is used as the first position information.

The first position information is a pose, is short for position and pose, is information consisting of position coordinates and angle coordinates, and is used for describing the position and the pose of the equipment needing to be positioned in a three-dimensional space.

Through the steps, the initial position of the equipment needing to be positioned is obtained, the problem that the position initialization of the equipment needing to be positioned, such as a robot, in a large map cannot be realized in the related technology is solved, the automatic realization of the positioning of the equipment needing to be positioned, such as the robot, is ensured, and the positioning accuracy of subsequent equipment is ensured.

It should be noted that UWB data, visual information, laser information, etc. may be obtained through corresponding sensors, and the specific implementation is not used to limit the scope of the present application. The application emphasizes that the initial position information of the equipment needing positioning is further accurately obtained by estimating the rough position information which can appear in the equipment needing positioning and utilizing the laser information.

Step 101: and when the moment of updating the position information comes, determining the current position information of the equipment needing to be positioned according to the first position information and the obtained position change information.

In an exemplary embodiment, the method further comprises the following steps:

after the device to be positioned completes initialization to obtain first position information of the device to be positioned, randomly distributing particles in a certain preset range around a first position corresponding to the first position information, wherein each particle represents a pose, for example: first position information S of particle i at time t0ⁱ _t0That is, the initial pose can be expressed as: sⁱ _t0＝(xⁱ _t0，yⁱ _t0，θⁱ _t0) Wherein x isⁱ _t0、yⁱ _t0Representing the position of the device to be positioned in a plane, thetaⁱ _t0Representing the angle of deflection of the device to be positioned.

In an exemplary embodiment, the method further comprises the following steps: and acquiring the position change information of the equipment needing to be positioned.

In an exemplary embodiment, obtaining the location change information of the device to be located may include:

the device requiring positioning obtains position change information Δ s' of the device requiring positioning using a chassis wheel speed meter (encoder).

In an exemplary embodiment, obtaining the location change information of the device to be located may include:

and the device needing to be positioned calculates the position change information delta s' of the device needing to be positioned according to the laser information, wherein each frame of laser information comprises the detected laser characteristics and the timestamp recorded by the sensor. Through the comparison of the new frame of laser characteristics and the previous frame of laser characteristics, the position change information Δ s' of the equipment needing to be positioned can be obtained.

In an exemplary embodiment, the first position information S of each particle is used in predicting the position change information Δ S' of the device to be locatedⁱ _t0Are redistributed according to the estimated position change information as'.

Due to the existence of accumulated errors of the wheel speed meter, when the position change information delta s' is larger, the particles are more dispersed so as to ensure that the predicted range can cover the actual situation, and the updating stage is continuously executed, namely the current position information of the equipment needing to be positioned is determined in the step; when the position change information Δ s' is very small, for example, smaller than a preset change amount (e.g., 1 cm or 0.5 degree direction), it may be considered that the device requiring positioning does not move, the updating stage, that is, the current position information of the device requiring positioning is determined in this step, is not executed, and the next time for updating the position information is waited to come.

In an exemplary embodiment, the location information update time comes, which may include: each time a device requiring positioning receives laser, visual or UWB data.

It should be noted that, when the device to be located arrives at the next time of updating the location information after the step 101 is completed, the step 101 is continuously executed to implement relocation of the device to be located. That is to say, as those skilled in the art can easily understand from the technical solutions described in the present application, after the device to be located is powered on for use, the obtained first location information is the location information of the location of the device obtained at the previous location information update time when the current location information update time comes.

In an exemplary embodiment, determining the current location information of the device requiring positioning according to the initial location information and the obtained location change information may include:

every time the device to be positioned receives the laser and visual data, the position change information deltas' estimated at the moment and the previous position information such as the first position information S calculated before each particle are usedⁱ _t0Calculating the matching degree of the received laser or visual signal and the (laser/visual) map; or, each time the device to be positioned receives UWB data, it calculates the first position information S, which is the previous position information calculated previously for each particle, based on the position change information Δ S' estimated at that timeⁱ _t0Calculating the likelihood degree of the received UWB signal;

and then according to the Monte Carlo principle, calculating an estimated value of the current position of the equipment needing to be positioned by using the obtained matching degree or the likelihood degree.

In one illustrative example, calculating an estimate of the current location of the device in need of location may include:

and taking the calculated matching degree or likelihood degree corresponding to each particle as the weight of each particle of the equipment needing to be positioned at the current moment, and carrying out weighted average calculation on the position information of each particle to obtain an estimated value of the current position of the equipment needing to be positioned. This enables estimation of the position and attitude of the device currently in need of positioning.

In an exemplary embodiment, taking the device to be located as an example of a robot, for the case of updating the position of the robot by using the visual information, when the robot receives the visual information, the visual feature point p which can be matched and is detected on the two-dimensional image plane is used as the matched visual feature point p_n＝(X_n，Y_n) According to the current particle pose Sⁱ _nMatching the detected visual feature point p_n＝(X_n，Y_n) Corresponding map three-dimensional feature point q_n＝(x_n，y_n，z_n) The corresponding position projected to the two-dimensional image plane is p'_n＝(X′_n，Y′_n). Two positions, i.e. detected visual feature points p that can be matched_n＝(X_n，Y_n) Location and corresponding location p 'projected onto a two-dimensional image plane'_n＝(X′_n，Y′_n) The error between (e.g. degree of matching as described above) can be measured in euclidean distanceTo indicate. Suppose that the weight corresponding to particle i is expressed as w_nF (E), wherein E ═ Σ E_nF (E) is a weighting function, and a Gaussian function or a Cauchy function may be selected as necessary. The situation of updating the position of the robot by using the laser information is the same as the situation of updating the position of the robot by using the visual information, and detailed description of the specific calculation is omitted here.

In an illustrative example, the current particle pose S is for the case of updating the location of the device to be located using UWB dataⁱ _nThe corresponding error can be expressed as: and the pose corresponding to the particle and the Euclidean distance of the pose calculated by the UWB system.

According to the positioning method, the initial position of the equipment to be positioned when the equipment to be positioned is started is calculated, so that the accuracy of subsequent positioning of the equipment to be positioned is ensured, and stable equipment positioning is realized.

The method organically combines one or any combination of laser data, visual data and UWB data together to estimate the bit state of the equipment needing positioning. That is to say, for different business scenarios, the positioning of the device requiring positioning can be realized by combining the use of the sensors arbitrarily through the pluggable sensor required for positioning the device requiring positioning (for example, only one single line laser radar is required at least). Thus, even if one sensor fails or data errors occur, the calculation of the bit state by using other sensors is not influenced. The problem of dependence on all sensors is solved, and the robustness of the system is improved.

In an actual business scene, the conclusion that the stability of the system is improved by the organic combination of a plurality of sensor signals is verified. The robot positioning method of the scheme realizes quick and accurate positioning by using various sensors, and achieves the purpose of quick recovery when the environment is changed or the positioning is invalid due to human factors, so that the business process and the customer experience are not influenced, and the requirements of a new retail scene on the mobile robot are met.

In an illustrative example, the present application may further include:

since the time of each sensor of the device to be located is different, in practical cases, the frequency and the data arrival time of each sensor are different, such as: the wheel speed meter is about 15 to 30Hz, the laser is about 10 to 25Hz, the vision is about 1 to 5Hz, and the UWB is about 1 to 10 Hz. Moreover, the matching calculation of the visual features requires a certain time, and the visual features can be involved in the calculation after the visual calculation is finished. In order to ensure that data from different sensors participating in calculation at each time are all directed to the same moment, the inventor proposes a corresponding time synchronization mechanism according to the characteristics of the sensors. That is, the time of all sensors of the device to be located may be aligned to ensure consistency of the timestamps.

In one illustrative example, time-aligning all sensors of a device to be located may include:

adding the received sensor information into corresponding processing queues of various sensors;

any sensor in the used sensors, such as laser, is used as a time trigger, when the data in a processing queue of the sensor is detected, the data is added into the queue to be processed as the data to be processed, and whether the data of other sensors is received between the data to be processed and the previous frame of data is determined according to the time stamp of the data to be processed;

and if the data of other sensors are received, adding the data serving as the data to be processed into a queue to be processed, and performing positioning calculation according to the sequence of the time stamps of the data to be processed in the queue to be processed, namely executing the step of determining the current position information of the equipment to be positioned.

Here, taking the situation of participation of all sensors such as laser, UWB, and vision as an example, when detecting that there is data in the laser queue, the laser data to be processed in the laser queue is taken out, and meanwhile, it is determined whether UWB data or vision data has been received between the current frame of laser data and the previous frame of laser data according to the time stamp. If UWB data and/or visual data are received, positioning calculation is carried out by respectively utilizing the UWB data and/or the visual data according to the sequence of the time stamps, and finally, the current laser data is used for calculating positioning.

This application is originally according to the characteristics of sensor and proposes corresponding time synchronization mechanism, aligns the time of all sensors of the equipment that needs the location, has guaranteed the uniformity of timestamp, and then provides the powerful guarantee for the equipment location of stable needs location.

In an illustrative example, according to different sensors used by the equipment needing positioning, the application uses a visual map and a laser map, or uses the laser map as input for comparing with laser information and visual information obtained by the sensors.

Through the mechanism for aligning the time of all the sensors of the equipment to be positioned, the problem of time asynchronism among the sensors is solved, and the accuracy and the real-time performance of the positioning of the equipment to be positioned are ensured.

The positioning method and the positioning device are suitable for indoor scenes such as markets, hotels, hospitals and restaurants.

Optionally, to improve computational efficiency, in one illustrative example, data from the sensors may be down-sampled as is practical.

The present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing any of the above positioning methods.

The present application further provides an apparatus for implementing positioning, including a memory and a processor, wherein the memory stores the steps of any one of the positioning methods described above.

Fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a positioning device according to the present application, as shown in fig. 2, at least including: the device comprises a preprocessing module and a positioning module; wherein the content of the first and second substances,

the device comprises a preprocessing module, a first position information acquisition module and a second position information acquisition module, wherein the preprocessing module is used for acquiring first position information of the device when the device is started;

and the positioning module is used for determining the current position information of the device according to the first position information and the obtained position change information when the position information updating moment comes.

In an exemplary embodiment, the preprocessing module is specifically configured to:

the device to which the preprocessing module belongs directly acquires first position information (i.e. position information which may appear) of the equipment to be positioned according to the UWB data or visual matching information.

In one illustrative example, the first location information in the preprocessing module includes: position information that may be present for a device that needs to be positioned, such as a robot, is predefined.

In an exemplary embodiment, the obtaining, in the preprocessing module, the position information that may be present in the apparatus to which the preprocessing module belongs may include:

for a device equipped with a UWB module (including a UWB tag and a UWB base station), after the device to which the preprocessing module belongs is powered on, stable UWB location information (for example, obtained by averaging data in a time period) is received as the first location information.

In an exemplary embodiment, the obtaining, in the preprocessing module, the position information that may be present in the apparatus to which the preprocessing module belongs may include:

for a device which uses a monocular camera to obtain visual information, after the device to which a preprocessing module belongs is started, extracting features from a current image obtained by the monocular camera, matching the extracted features with the features in a visual map, and taking the position information corresponding to the features in the visual map obtained by matching as the first position information.

In one illustrative example, the location module is further configured to:

randomly distributing particles in a certain preset range around a first position corresponding to the first position information, wherein each particle represents a pose;

estimating position change information delta s' of a device to which the positioning module belongs by using wheel speed meter information calculated by a chassis wheel speed meter or laser information;

the first position information of each particle is redistributed according to the position change information.

In one illustrative example, the location module is further configured to estimate the location change information:

obtaining position change information delta s' of the equipment to be positioned by using a chassis wheel speed meter (encoder); alternatively, the first and second electrodes may be,

and the device needing to be positioned calculates the position change information delta s' of the device needing to be positioned according to the laser information, wherein each frame of laser information comprises the detected laser characteristics and the timestamp recorded by the sensor. Through the comparison of the new frame of laser characteristics and the previous frame of laser characteristics, the position change information Δ s' of the equipment needing to be positioned can be obtained.

In an illustrative example, the positioning module is specifically configured to:

when the robot receives laser and visual data each time, calculating the matching degree of the received laser or visual signal and a (laser/visual) map according to the estimated position change information delta s' at the moment and the previous position information calculated before each particle; or, each time the device to be positioned receives UWB data, it calculates the first position information S, which is the previous position information calculated previously for each particle, based on the position change information Δ S' estimated at that timeⁱ _t0Calculating the likelihood degree of the received UWB signal;

and according to the Monte Carlo principle, calculating an estimated value of the current position of the device to which the positioning module belongs by using the obtained matching degree or the likelihood degree.

In an exemplary embodiment, the calculating, in the positioning module, the estimate of the current position of the device to be positioned may include:

and taking the calculated matching degree or likelihood degree corresponding to each particle as the weight of each particle of the equipment needing to be positioned at the current moment, and carrying out weighted average calculation on the position information of each particle to obtain an estimated value of the current position of the equipment needing to be positioned. This enables estimation of the position and attitude of the device currently in need of positioning.

The positioning device provided by the application can be used for ensuring the accuracy of subsequent positioning of the equipment to be positioned by calculating the initial position of the equipment to be positioned when the equipment to be positioned is started, and realizing stable equipment positioning.

In one illustrative example, the present apparatus further comprises: and the synchronization module is used for aligning the time of all the sensors of the device to which the synchronization module belongs.

In an exemplary embodiment, the synchronization module is specifically configured to:

adding the received sensor information into corresponding processing queues of various sensors;

any sensor in the used sensors, such as laser, is used as a time trigger, when the data in a processing queue of the sensor is detected, the data is added into the queue to be processed as the data to be processed, and whether the data of other sensors is received between the data to be processed and the previous frame of data is determined according to the time stamp of the data to be processed;

and if the data of other sensors are received, adding the data serving as the data to be processed into the queue to be processed, and performing positioning calculation according to the sequence of the time stamps of the data to be processed in the queue to be processed to determine the current position information of the equipment to be positioned.

This application originally proposes corresponding time synchronization mechanism according to the characteristics of sensor, marks and aligns the time of all sensors of the equipment that needs the location, has guaranteed the uniformity of timestamp, and then provides the powerful guarantee for the equipment location of stable needs location.

The present application also provides a robot comprising at least the positioning device shown in fig. 2, any combination of the following sensors outputting data to the positioning device: sensors that provide laser information, sensors that provide visual information, sensors that provide UWB data, and the like.

Although the embodiments disclosed in the present application are described above, the descriptions are only for the convenience of understanding the present application, and are not intended to limit the present application. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure as defined by the appended claims.