An Infrastructure-less, Control-Independent Solution to Relative Localisation of a Team of Mobile Robots using Ranging Measurements

2026-06-18

AI Summary

This work proposes a decentralized multi-robot relative localization method tailored for unstructured environments lacking fixed infrastructure and pre-defined motion control. Relying solely on local odometry, sparse range measurements, and short-range communication, the approach operates without anchor nodes or active motion coordination. It maintains all feasible solutions through a multi-hypothesis Bayesian framework and ensures system observability via decentralized information fusion. The algorithm substantially enhances robustness under partial connectivity and transient unobservability, enabling reliable relative localization for multi-robot teams in rapid-deployment scenarios.

Abstract

The ability to localise teams of robots is essential for applications ranging from robotic fleets in unstructured environments to cooperative control and navigation tasks. In such contexts, fixed infrastructure is often unavailable, deployments must be fast and flexible, and system requirements must be minimal. We present a decentralised cooperative localisation algorithm that addresses all these challenges at once. The method is anchor-less, fully decentralised, and, unlike most existing approaches, does not require controlling the robots motion to ensure team observability. It relies only on local odometry, sparse inter-agent ranging measurements, and short-range communication, all of which are widely available in practice. The algorithm adopts a multi-hypothesis Bayesian framework that maintains the entire set of feasible solutions, ensuring robustness under transient unobservable conditions. Moreover, through information sharing, each agent benefits from the estimates of the entire group, even in partially connected conditions.

Problem

• relative localisation
• mobile robots
• infrastructure-less
• control-independent
• ranging measurements

Innovation

• infrastructure-less
• control-independent
• decentralised localisation
• multi-hypothesis Bayesian
• ranging-based