Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Mechatronics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechatronics

Kinematic parameter calibration of a car-like mobile robot to improve

odometry accuracy
Kooktae Lee, Woojin Chung *, Kwanghyun Yoo
School of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, Anam-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 137-713, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Odometry provides fundamental pose estimates for wheeled vehicles. For accurate and reliable pose esti-
Received 1 August 2008 mation, systematic and nonsystematic errors of odometry should be reduced. In this paper, we focus on
Accepted 3 June 2010 systematic error sources of a car-like mobile robot (CLMR) and we suggest a novel calibration method.
Kinematic parameters of the CLMR can be successfully calibrated by only a couple of test driving. After
reducing deterministic errors by calibration, odometry accuracy can be further improved by redundant
Keywords: odometry fusion with the extended Kalman lter (EKF). Odometry fusion reduces nonsystematic or sto-
Mobile robot
chastic errors. Experimental verications are carried out using a radio-controlled miniature car.
Calibration
Odometry
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Pose recognition

1. Introduction most of recent automated vehicle applications, it is common to

Odometry using wheel encoders provides fundamental pose
estimates for wheeled vehicles. Pose estimation by pure odometry
does not require environmental modication or prior knowledge of
environment. However, the major drawback of odometry is the
accumulation of errors. In the eld of mobile robotics, it is common
that odometry error sources can be divided into two different
groups as illustrated in [1,2]. The rst source is the systematic error
which is deterministic. Therefore, it is desirable to investigate the
error source and, if possible, to eliminate the error by appropriate
calibration. Systematic error sources include unequal wheel diam-
eters, misalignment of wheels, or kinematic modeling errors.
Therefore, it is possible to decrease the error if kinematic parame-
ters are calibrated, and the calibration scheme is the major scope of
this paper.
The second error source is the nonsystematic error which is sto-
chastic. Possible sources of errors are environmental conditions
such as uneven ground or wheel slippage. Nonsystematic errors
cannot be directly compensated, but the errors are just modeled
as the stochastic uncertainty as in [1]. If nonsystematic errors are
too large, then it is difcult to use pure odometry for pose
estimation.
Despite the accumulation of odometry error, the calibration of
systematic errors is useful. The reduction of systematic errors di-
rectly contributes to the improvement of odometry accuracy. In
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +82 2 3290 3375.
E-mail addresses: hakuna79@korea.ac.kr (K. Lee), smartrobot@korea.ac.kr
(W. Chung), ykhhky@korea.ac.kr (K. Yoo).
combine multimodal sensor information, for examples, see [3,4].
Therefore, it is advantageous to improve odometry accuracy,
regardless of other sensing modalities.
There have been some studies on the calibration of systematic
errors as in [58]. Borenstein proposed a practical calibration
scheme for two-wheeled differential drive mobile robots in [5].
The wheel diameter and tread can be calibrated by driving a robot
along a square path, and monitoring nal positional error. Other
studies reported in [6] and [8] suggested calibration schemes for
mobile robots with a synchronous drive. Those approaches are
inapplicable to the car-like mobile robot (CLMR) calibration prob-
lems because the wheel mechanisms are completely different.
Mckerrow and Ratner [9] introduced a method for calibrating
the systematic error for CLMRs using ultrasonic range sensors.
They focused on the calibration of the wheel diameters and tread,
and suggested a calibration scheme based on test driving experi-
ment. However, it is difcult to install additional range sensors just
for calibration. A range sensor requires sensor calibration and it in-
creases complexity of a system.
On the other hand, nonsystematic errors cannot be directly
compensated because they are stochastic. Therefore, nonsystem-
atic errors are described in terms of probability, for example, as
in [10]. Since uncertainty of pose estimation grows according to
the increase in the travel distance, external sensors are used for
correcting the robot pose. Bento et al. [11] and Surrecio et al.
[12] proposed nonsystematic error reduction methods by combin-
ing odometry and external magnetic sensor data. Map-based
localization methods [1315] for the two-wheeled mobile robots
are widely used in the eld of mobile robotics. However,

0957-4158/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mechatronics.2010.06.002
 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595
environmental modications such as installation of beacons are
difcult and costly in practical applications. In addition, we cannot
obtain map information in most cases.
Bonnifait and Bouron [16] introduced nonsystematic error
reduction method using odometry fusion and GPS. It is advanta-
geous to improve accuracy of pose estimation by maximally utiliz-
ing odometry redundancy. However, the scheme in [16] works
only when the speed of a car is sufciently high, because the ex-
tended Kalman lter (EKF) model becomes invalid in low speed
range. In summary, it is still difcult to nd out a useful calibration
scheme for the CLMR.
In this paper, we suggest a practical calibration method for sys-
tematic errors for the CLMR in Section 2. A part of this work was
introduced in [17]. We discuss error sources and the effect of kine-
matic modeling errors. We propose a novel calibration scheme by
focusing on wheel diameter and tread. Section 3 shows the nonsys-
tematic error reduction scheme. By combining front and rear
odometry through the EKF, pose estimation accuracy can be
remarkably improved. Finally, we will show the validity of the pro-
posed method through experiments using a radio-controlled mod-
el car in Section 4. Concluding remarks are given in Section 5.
2. Calibration of systematic odometry errors
2.1. Kinematics and systematic error sources of the CLMR
Fig. 1 shows parameters and variables of the CLMR. From Fig. 1,
it can be seen that the front wheels are steered by the Ackermann
steering mechanism. Front wheels are steered in order to preserve
the instantaneous center of vehicle rotation.
For the short time period of Dt, odometry pose at new time step
k can be computed as follows.
xk xk1 Ddr  coshk1 Dh=2
yk yk1 Ddr  sinhk1 Dh=2
hk hk1 Dh
Fig. 1. Parameters and variables of a car-like mobile robot (CLMR).
583
Ddrr Ddrl
Ddr 2
2
Ddr
Dh tan / 3
L
Nrrrl
Ddrrrl pDrrrl 4
Rerrrl
In the above, xk: position of the CLMR in the x-direction at time
k, yk: position of the CLMR in the y-direction at time k, hk: heading
direction of the CLMR at time k, Ddrr(rl): incremental travel dis-
placement for the rear right and left wheels, Dh: incremental angle
for the CLMR, Drr(rl): nominal diameter of the rear right (left) wheel,
Nrr(rl): incremental encoder pulses of the rear right (left) wheel, and
Rerr(rl): encoder resolution of the rear right(left) wheel.
Although it is possible to use Eq. (3) for odometry computation,
odometry accuracy may decrease because there are three parame-
ters D, L, and U which are required to be calibrated. Therefore, it is
advantageous to use the following equation because there are only
two parameters D and b for the calibration.
Ddrr  Ddrl
Dh 5
b
Therefore, we assume that the dominant error sources are
wheel diameter D and tread b. This assumption implies that if
effective D and b are successfully calibrated, most of the systematic
error can be compensated.
2.2. Odometry of the CLMR
Although there is a well-known kinematic parameter calibra-
tion scheme [5] for two-wheeled differential drive robots, it is
inapplicable to the CLMR. Fig. 2 shows the different structures. It
1 is assumed that both robots possess uncalibrated wheel diameter
errors. For both robots, the left wheel is larger than the right wheel
by e.
Suppose that the two wheels of the robot in Fig. 2a are driven
with the same angular velocities. When the robot moves, the ro-
bots motion is slightly curved due to the unequal wheel diameters,
as shown in Fig. 2a. Therefore, unequal wheel diameters always re-
sult in path following error. However, the position estimated by
odometry matches with the desired position.
On the other hand, the CLMR moves along the desired straight
path regardless of the unequal wheel diameters, as shown in
Fig. 2b. The heading direction of the CLMR depends on the steering
direction regardless of wheel diameters. When the diameter of the
rear left wheel is larger than that of the rear right wheel, the angu-
lar velocity of the rear left wheel is smaller than that of the rear
right wheel owing to the differential gear. As a result, odometry
path becomes a curved dashed line, as shown in Fig. 2b.
Fig. 3 shows the effect of odometry error when there are mod-
eling errors in D and b. Fig. 3a shows the curved odometry due to
unequal wheel diameters. Fig. 3b shows the effect of the tread er-
rors. When there are tread errors, the radius of an odometry path is
different from the radius of an actual path. Therefore, it is neces-
sary to include curved motion as well as a straight motion to cali-
brate both the tread and wheel diameters.
2.3. Test track for odometry calibration
Our calibration scheme is carried out by using test driving along
the reference path. Kinematic parameters can be calibrated by
computing odometry positions. If the vehicles steering angle is
appropriately calibrated in advance, it is easy to follow the refer-
ence path accurately by open loop control. Since the positioning er-
584 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595

Fig. 2. Difference between a two wheel differential mobile robot and the CLMR.

Fig. 3. Odometry errors for two reference paths.

ror of the CLMR is sufciently small at the end point, there is no

need to use expensive positional sensing systems. In addition,
environmental modications such as beacon installation are not
required.
In two-wheeled mobile robots, systematic odometry errors are
calibrated by monitoring the experimental end-position error of
the robot under the open loop control. The real end-position error
is affected by parameter errors as noted in [5]. However, the CLMR
moves along the ideal reference path with small positional error
while odometry yields wrong positional information. The CLMR
has a different structure from a two-wheeled mobile robot, as ex-
plained in Section 2.2. Therefore, the proposed systematic calibra-
tion scheme uses the erroneous ending position yielded from
odometry.
We dene a reference track for the test drive, as shown in Fig. 4.
The track consists of straight lines and semicircles. The details of
the steering angle calibration will be explained in Section 4.2. In
order to calibrate the tread and the wheel diameter simulta- Fig. 4. The reference track for test drives in order to calibrate the systematic errors.
 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595 585

neously, the test track should include both straight and curved the CW and CCW direction, odometry is computed as a dashed line
path, as explained in Section 2.2. Therefore, for examples, T- or in Fig. 5. In this case, the nominal tread is smaller than the actual
S-shaped tracks are not available. Once the CLMR is driven through tread.
the test track twice, the systematic errors can be calibrated by Since we assume that the rear wheel diameters are identical in
using the proposed scheme. One is to make a CCW round trip from Type A errors, odometry path and the real path are identical in the
SCCW . The other is to make a CW round trip from SCW . straight line section. On the other hand, in the semicircle section,
The reason why we drive the robot along the test track in both the radius of curvature from odometry data is different from the
CW and CCW directions is as follows. If the CLMR is driven in only real path because the tread is not calibrated. As shown in Fig. 5,
one direction, odometry error of the nal position could be small we assume that the error in semicircular section is represented
regardless of uncalibrated parameters. It is possible that the effects by angle a. In CW and CCW direction, nal position (x4, y4) can
of unequal wheel diameters and tread errors may be internally be obtained as following equations. Detailed equations are given
compensated each other. In such a case, odometry error of at the in [17].
nal position becomes larger when the CLMR is driven in the oppo- p
site direction. pa qa
x4;CW 2
CW : 6
The systematic error calibration is decomposed into two steps. y4;CW 2qa
First, we dene Type A error which implies the uncalibrated tread
error, while it is assumed that rear wheel diameters are assumed to x4;CCW p2pa qa
have no modeling error. Seconds, we dene Type B error that re- CCW : 7
y4;CCW 2qa
sults from an uncalibrated wheel diameter without tread error.

2.5. Type B error: uncalibrated wheel diameter

2.4. Type A error: uncalibrated tread

Type B error is caused by the wheel diameter error without

Type A errors are caused by an uncalibrated tread. We assume
tread error. Fig. 6 shows odometry error when the diameter of
that the rear wheel diameters have no modeling error and tread
the rear left wheel is slightly larger than the diameter of the rear
is uncalibrated. If the CLMR moves along the reference path in
right wheel.
Odometry reveals a curved path in the straight line section. b is
dened to represent the positional error as shown in Fig. 6. The ra-
dius of odometry path is smaller than the radius of the semicircle

Fig. 5. Type A errors in CW motion from SCW (top) and CCW motion from SCCW
(bottom). Fig. 6. Type B errors in CW (top) and CCW (bottom) motions.
586 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595

of the reference path in CW direction. The nal position (x4, y4) p

bactual b 17
from odometry can be computed through the following equations: p  a nominal
p If the nominal value of the tread is smaller than the effective
x4;CW 22 qb
CW : 2b
8 tread, a is negative. On the other hand, if the nominal value is lar-
y4;CW 2 pqb ger than the effective tread, a is positive. We can calculate the ratio
between the rear right and left wheel diameters, which can be de-
p
x4;CCW 22
2b
qb rived from the geometric relationship shown in Fig. 7.
CCW : 9 The dashed curve has an instantaneous center at I.C. in Fig. 7
y4;CCW 2 pqb
and the radius of curvature R can be represented as a following
equation.
2.6. Systematic error calibration equation
q
R 18
In practical applications, it is common that the CLMR possesses sinb=2
both wheel diameter errors and tread errors. Therefore, Types A
and B errors take place simultaneously. It is quite difcult to derive Finally, the ratio of rear wheel diameters can be derived as
the positional error analytically under multiple modeling errors. follows.
We make a superposition between the nal position of Types A
and B in the direction of CW and CCW, under the assumption that DR R b=2
19
positional errors are sufciently small. Following equations are the DL R  b=2
results of superposition in x-coordinate.
p
CW : xc:g;CW p2pa qa 22
2b
qb 2.7. The proposed systematic error calibration scheme
22p
10
2p
CCW : xc:g;CCW pa qa 2b qb
In summary, the dominant systematic error sources, which are
In experiments, in order to reduce uncertainties by nonsystem- the tread error and rear wheel diameter errors, are calibrated by
the following scheme.
atic errors, the average position from multiple test drives is used,
and it is denoted by c.g. (center of gravity). Finally, (10) can be
(1) Run the vehicle through the test track in the CW direction.
rewritten as follows.
(2) Incorrect tread and rear wheel diameters cause odometry
pxc:g:;CW  xc:g:;CCW errors that are denoted as Types A and B errors, respectively.
a 11 (3) Upon the robots return to the starting position, compare the
xc:g:;CW  xc:g:;CCW 4pq
real ending position with the erroneous odometry ending
q
  2 position.
1 1 xc:g:;CW xc:g:;CCW =22 pq (4) Repeat steps 13 four more times (a total of ve runs in
b   12
xc:g:;CW xc:g:;CCW =42 pq order to average the nonsystematic errors).
(5) Repeat steps 14 in the CCW direction.
In a similar manner, a and b can be represented by using y-coor- (6) Calibrate the tread error by using Eqs. (11), (14), and (17).
dinate as follows. (7) Calibrate the incorrect rear wheel diameter by using Eqs.
(12), (15), and (19).
CW : yCW 2qa 2 pqb yc:g:;CW
13
CCW : yCCW 2qa  2 pqb yc:g:;CCW Since Eqs. (11), (12), (14), and (15) were derived by linear
approximations, convergence characteristics can be obtained when
yc:g:;CW yc:g:;CCW kinematic parameter errors are small. Although it is difcult to de-
a 14
4q rive mathematical conditions for convergence, the usefulness will
be veried through numerical simulations and experiments in
yc:g:;CW  yc:g:;CCW
b 15 Section 4.
22 pq

In an ideal case, the values for a from (11) and (14) should be
identical and the values for b from (12) and (15) should also be
identical. Since the positional error is affected by various error
sources, the experimental a and b are different from ideal values.
However, it is reasonable to assume that odometry error at the -
nal pose will converge to zero, when kinematic parameters con-
verge to real values. If the resultant odometry error is not
sufciently small, iterative change of kinematic parameters possi-
bly improve odometry accuracy. By using a and b, we can calibrate
tread and wheel diameters.
From Fig. 5, we can obtain a relationship regarding the heading
error between the real path and odometry path. The relationship
between a and the tread, b, can be represented as the following
equation.

p pa
16
bactual bnominal
Fig. 7. Geometric relation between the radius of curvature and the length of the
Finally, (16) can be rewritten as the following equation. straight line under uncalibrated tread.
 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595 587

3. Reduction of the nonsystematic error By substituting Ddr in Eq. (1) with Eq. (25), we can dene the
observation, zk, as follows.
Nonsystematic errors are caused by various uncertainties 0  1
Dh
including wheel slippage, uneven ground contact conditions and xk1;f p
1
 Ddr cos hk1;f 2 f
B 1tan / C
so forth. Fortunately, the CLMR has redundant odometry informa- B  C
zk B
B yk1;f p
1 Dh
 Ddr sin hk1;f 2 f C
C 26
tion that is provided from the front and rear wheels. If some wheels @ 1tan / A
slip at certain moments, the redundant odometry can be used for hk1;f Dhf
compensating the wheel slippages except in the extreme case of
slippage in all wheels. In order to compensate nonsystematic errors The nonlinear measurement model is presented as the follow-
which are stochastic, the EKF is adopted to fuse the front and real ing equation.
odometry information. The detailed algorithms on the EKF can be zk hxk v k 27
found in existing literatures as in [1]. The sequence of odometry fu-
sion through the EKF is divided into three steps as follows. In the above, hxk denotes the measurement vector, hxk
xk yk hk T , and vk is Gaussian sensor noise vector with covariance
3.1. System model matrix Rk.

The system model is dened by the kinematic nonlinear equa- 3.3. The EKF algorithm
tions as presented in (1), with the state vector xk = [xkykhk]T and in-
put, uk = [DdDh]T, which can be written in the following form with The EKF is used for combining the front and rear odometry
noises. redundancy. The pose of the CLMR is predicted by using the rear
odometry at the prediction stage. The front odometry is fused at
xk f xk1 ; uk ; ck ; rk 20 the correction stage.
In Eq. (20), ck and rk denote the system and input noises with
the associated matrices, Uk and Qk. 3.3.1. Prediction stage

^  f X
X ^ k1 ; uk ; 0; 0
3.2. Measurement model k
28
Pk Ak Pk1 ATk Bk Ck1 BTk Q
In order to use the EKF, odometry of the front axle should be
A and B are shown in the following Jacobian.
converted to odometry of the rear axle. Fig. 8 shows the geometry
2  3
of the CLMR in a curve. The distances between I.C. and the front 1 0 Ddk  sin hk D2hk
and rear axle centers are presented as follows. 6   7
Ak 4 0 1 Ddk  cos hk D2hk 5 29
q
q L2 q2r 21 0 0 1
2 3
L coshk D2hk  D2dk  sinhk D2hk
qr 22 6 7
tan / Bk 4 sinhk Dhk Ddk  coshk Dhk 5 30
2 2 2
0 1
By combining (21) and (22), we obtain the following equation.
s s
L2 1
qf L2 2 L  1 2 23 3.3.2. Correction stage
tan / tan /
Sk Hk Pk HTk Rk
The travel distance of the front and rear axle centers during Dt is
represented as follows. K k Pk HTk S1
k
  31
Ddr qr  Dh; Ddf qf  Dh: 24 ^k X
X ^  K k zk  hX
^ 
k k

Finally, by eliminating Dh in (24), the front odometry is con- Pk I  K k Hk Pk

verted into the travel distance of the rear axle as follows. In the above, I is the identity matrix and Hk is the Jacobian of the
q 1 measurement function, h(.).
Ddr r  Ddf p  Ddf 25
qf 1 tan2 / Hk rx hxk 32
From the measurement function, h(.) in (27), the Jacobian is an
identity matrix as a following equation.
0 1
1 0 0
B C
Hk @ 0 1 0A 33
0 0 1

4. Simulations and experiments

4.1. Simulations

In order to investigate the validity of the proposed calibration

scheme, simulations are carried out. Fig. 9 shows a simulation re-
sult for CCW motion when the CLMR possesses both tread error
Fig. 8. Geometry of the car in a turning motion. and wheel diameter errors. It can be seen that odometry path
588 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595

and the reference path show a great difference. However, the end-
position error is extremely small. This fact implies that the effect of
the tread error and wheel diameter errors were balanced and can-
celled each other at the end-position. In order to solve this prob-
lem, the CLMR should be driven in the opposite direction. The
result of CW motion is shown in Fig. 10.
In Fig. 10, the end-position error between the real position of
the CLMR and odometry is extremely large due to uncalibrated
parameters. Since the reference motion is different from the previ-
ous test, the error balancing problem can be avoided. For further
investigations, the end-position errors were computed under kine-
matic parameter errors. Fig. 11 shows the computed result.
In Fig. 11, x and y axes represent uncalibrated tread and wheel
diameters respectively. z axis correspond to the end-position error.
The end-position error should be a minimum around the real kine-
matic parameter. The valley in Fig. 11 implies that the end-position
error can be small for a wide variety of parameter sets. The valley is
resulted from the error-balancing problems. In order to overcome
error balancing, different reference trajectory should be chosen.
Fig. 9. Odometry path including both tread and wheel diameter errors: CCW
Fig. 12 shows end-position errors for both CCW and CW motions.
motion. Fig. 12 is obtained by computing end-position errors for kine-
matic parameters around the valley of Fig. 11. If the CLMR is driven
to CCW direction only, kinematic parameters may not converge to
real values due to error balancing. However, it is clear that the end-
position error increases under CW motion. Therefore, calibrations
could be successfully carried out by adopting both CW and CCW
motions.
As shown in Fig. 13, the valley of the error surface is also ob-
tained under CW motion. Therefore, it is desirable to obtain the -
nal pose error under CCW motion. In Fig. 14, the CW motions have
small end-position errors despite uncalibrated parameters. How-
ever, the end-position errors under the CCW motions show great
differences around actual parameters (b = 31.5 cm, Dr =Dl = 1.00).
Therefore, calibrations could be successfully carried out by adopt-
ing both the CW and CCW motions.
Fig. 15a represents the total end-position errors for uncali-
brated wheel diameters under calibrated treads. It is clear that
the total end-position errors monotonically increase around the ac-
tual wheel diameter ratio of 1.00. The region of convergence is
about 20%, which is acceptably large in practical applications.
Fig. 10. Odometry path including both tread and wheel diameter errors: CW Fig. 15b shows the total error for uncalibrated treads under cali-
motion. brated wheel diameters. The length of the rear tread varies from

Fig. 11. The end-position errors under tread and wheel diameter errors: CCW motion.
 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595 589

Fig. 12. The end-position errors for both CW and CCW motions including parametric errors with respect to Fig. 11.

Fig. 13. The end-position errors under tread and wheel diameter errors: CW motion.

21.5 cm to 41.5 cm. The total end-position errors converge to zero
as the length of the tread moves close to the actual value. The re-
gion of convergence is about 30%.
Fig. 16 is obtained by combining Figs. 11 and 13. Fig. 16b and c
shows the total error surface observed from different viewpoints.
The error surface presented in Fig. 16a reects the cases in which
both tread and wheel diameter errors exist simultaneously. The
presented error surface represents the convergence of the total
end-position errors to zero under the proposed calibration scheme.
The error-balancing problems are successfully prevented by adopt-
ing both CW and CCW motions. The region of convergence is about
30% for the uncalibrated tread and 20% for the uncalibrated
wheel diameters. We dene the error surface in the following form.
Etotal f b; Dr =Dl
From Fig. 16, the global minimum is located at the point that
represents the actual parameters. Therefore, calibrations could be
successfully carried out by adopting both the CW and CCW
motions.
4.2. Experimental systems and steering calibration
The CLMR used in experiments is shown in Fig. 17. This CLMR
has a same kinematic structure as a real car.
As shown in Fig. 17b, the commercialized position sensor (Star-
Gazer) is adopted for monitoring the real pose of a vehicle. It is an
articial landmark based device. The average positional error is
about 5 cm and the orientation error is below 5. In a mobile robot,
34 we can recongure the driving mechanism. For experiments, a
front wheel driven mechanism has been adopted. Passive rear
590 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595

Fig. 14. The end-position errors for both CW and CCW motions including parametric errors with respect to Fig. 13.

Fig. 15. Total end-position errors under (a) wheel diameter errors and (b) tread errors.

wheels result in better odometry accuracy than active front
wheels.
According to the ground contact conditions or modeling errors
with regard to the steering angle, moving direction of the CLMR
may not coincide with the desired steering input. Since the accu-
racy of steering motion dominates the overall control performance,
the steering angle should be calibrated rst. Regardless of the other
kinematic parameters, the vehicle moves along a circular path un-
der a constant steering input.
Fig. 18 shows the traces of the CLMR from successive camera
images under constant steering angles. The steering angle changes
from 20.6 to 19.7 which are joint limits. From the traces of the
CLMR, the resultant curvature of the circular path in Fig. 19a can be
computed by the least square tting in [18]. From Fig. 19a, it is
clear that the experimental path is circular and the curvature is al-
most constant. Fig. 19b shows the calibration result between the
steering control inputs and the resultant steering angles that are
computed from experimental curvatures. It is clear that the steer-
ing angle calibration can be accurately carried out with strong
linearity.
4.3. Systematic error calibration results
The size of the test track should not be too small because cali-
bration results become too sensitive with respect to odometry er-
rors. Therefore, appropriate size of the test track with respect to
the robots dimension is required for calibrating the kinematic
parameters. In experiments, we set the size of the test track as
350 cm  250 cm by considering the physical dimension of the
wheel diameter and the tread.
The CLMR is driven by open loop in the experiments. The CLMR
moves along the test track by constant speed of 100 mm/s. The
steering angle of the robot is controlled by an RC-Servo motor.
The sequence of open loop control is as follows.
 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595 591

Fig. 16. Integrated end-position errors under tread and wheel diameter errors.

(1) From the starting position, go straight by 2q (where q is the
curvature radius of the semicircle of the test track).
(2) Turn left (or right) with constant radius of curvature q, until
the semicircle section is completed.
(3) Go straight again by 2q.
(4) Turn left (or right) with constant radius of curvature q, until
the semicircle section is completed.
(5) The CLMR returns to the starting position.
The fundamental assumption of the proposed odometry calibra-
tion scheme is that the vehicle accurately follows the reference
path regardless of uncalibrated parameters. The nal pose error
should be acceptably small. Therefore, we carried out open loop
driving test of the CLMR rst.
Experimental results are shown in Fig. 20. As represented in
dashed line in Fig. 20, the real path of the CLMR measured by the
position sensor well match with the reference path. Final positions
after ve test drives are marked by x symbols around the starting
location in Fig. 20. When the starting position is (x, y) = (0, 0), nal
positions are shown in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, the mean of
ve positional errors is 0.57 cm. The error is small when it is com-
pared to the positional error after calibration. For example, the
positional error after calibration was 9.6 cm as presented in exper-
iment #1 of Table. 2.
The proposed systematic error calibration scheme is experi-
mentally tested. Fig. 21 shows experimental results before and
after the rst and the second calibrations. In experiments, not only
systematic errors but also nonsystematic errors affect odometry
592 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595

Fig. 17. The CLMR used in experiments and the position sensor.

Fig. 18. Calirabration experiments of steering angles with a constant input.

errors. Therefore, we obtained the center of gravity from ve inde-

pendent experiments in CW and CCW directions. By using the cen-
ter of gravity, the effects of nonsystematic errors can be averaged.
Since there are systematic errors before the calibration, the center
of gravity location of odometry are far from the origin. Before the
Fig. 20. Driving test for the CLMR under open loop control (total travel distance:
calibration, nominal tread and wheel diameter ratio were
8 m).
b = 30 cm and DR/DL = 1.00 (DR = DL = 9 cm). After the proposed

Fig. 19. The steering angle calibration.

 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595 593

Table 1 tion of the center of gravity moved to the close neighborhood of

Final positions under open loop control. the origin, which implies that systematic errors were successfully
p
Experiment x (cm) y (cm) Offset x2 y2 (cm)
compensated.
The positional errors are evaluated by the maximum Euclidian
1 3.26 1.64 distance, which is the worst case, as follows.
2 5.39 0.16
3 1.76 2.18 q
2  2
4 3.92 1.23 rc:g:;CW xc:g:;CW yc:g:;CW 35
5 8.90 3.66
Average 0.48 0.31 0.57 q
2  2
rc:g:;CCW xc:g:;CCW yc:g:;CCW 36

calibration method was applied, the parameters were calibrated to Emax;syst maxr c:g:;CW ; r c:g:;CCW 37
b = 28 cm and DR/DL = 0.99. From Fig. 21, it is obvious that the loca-

Table 2
Results on the calibration of the systematic error.

Exp. Experimental conditions Before calibration Emt (cm) After calibration Eyst (cm) Figure
(Front) (Rear)
1 Details are shown in Fig. 21 52.9 9.6

2 Increase of 3% rear right wheel diameter by winding tape 196.8 12.7

3 Increase of 3% rear left wheel diameter by winding tape 159.8 16.7

4 Winding tape around left outside of rear left and right wheels 91.5 8.9

Fig. 21. Experimental results after calibration (experiment #1).

594 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595
For further verications, we carried out some experiments. In
experiment #2 shown in Table. 2, the diameter of the rear right
wheel was increased by 3%. The parameter error was intentionally
made by winding a tape around the outer surface of a tire as shown
in Fig. 22. In experiment #4, we wound the tape around the left-
most contact surface of the rear wheels to change effective tread.
Fig. 22. Tape winding around the rear left wheel.
Fig. 23. Experiment on nonsystematic error reduction.
Fig. 24. End-position errors.
In all cases, the nal position error was remarkably decreased ow-
ing to the calibration. It is clear that our calibration scheme pro-
vides accurate results regardless of the changes in kinematic
parameters. The experiments veried that the proposed method
can be used to calibrate the systematic odometry error.
4.4. Nonsystematic error reduction result
Experimental results on odometry fusion using the EKF are
shown in Fig. 23. In Fig. 23a, it can be seen that odometry path
by only rear wheels is greatly different from the actual vehicle
path. On the other hand, the proposed EKF path shows much sim-
ilarity with the resultant vehicle path. Fig. 23b shows the magni-
tude of the positional errors for the experiment indicated by
Fig. 23a experiment. It is obvious that odometry by the EKF pro-
vides accurate position estimation performance than odometry
without the EKF. Nonsystematic errors take place randomly and
they are stochastic. Therefore, it is desirable to carry out multiple
experiments.
Fig. 24 presents experimental results of end-position errors for
the path shown in Fig. 23a. Experiments are carried out repeatedly
for 60 times. It can be seen that the rear odometry without the EKF
shows large errors (the variance r2r is 0.429 m2) than odometry
with the EKF (variance r2r is 0.283 m2). It can be concluded that
odometry accuracy was improved by 30% through odometry
fusion.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we have proposed the systematic error calibration
and nonsystematic error reduction scheme for the CLMR. The dom-
inant systematic error sources are dened for the CLMR and we
suggested a practical calibration method to compensate the errors.
It was shown that the nonsystematic error can be reduced by fus-
ing redundant odometry through the EKF. Presented experiments
showed that the proposed method could clearly improve odometry
accuracy and reliability.
The proposed scheme is applicable to car-like mobile robots. A
possible application area includes the intelligent automobiles.
However, a practical drawback is that repetitive calibrations are re-
quired due to the change of wheel radius. Therefore, the rst appli-
 K. Lee et al. / Mechatronics 20 (2010) 582595
cation target is the mobile robots with hard wheels. It can be said
that the variation of kinematic parameters is not large in mobile
robots with hard wheels such as urethane wheels. Regardless of
the necessity of repetitive calibration, the proposed scheme signif-
icantly contributes to the improvement of the localization
performance.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the MKE under the Human
Resources Development Program for Convergence Robot Special-
ists. This work was also supported by Mid-career Researcher Pro-
gram through the NRF grant funded by the MEST. This work was
also supported by the ITRC support program. This work was also
supported by the project The Development of Autonomous Navi-
gation Systems for a Robot Vehicle in Urban Environment at the
KIST. This work was also supported by Korea University during
the sabbatical year of the second author.
References
[1] Thrun S, Burgard W, Fox D. Probabilistic robotics. 1st ed. The MIT Press; 2005.
[2] Borenstein J, Everett HR, Feng L. Where am I? Sensors and methods for mobile
robot positioning. University of Michigan, Department of Mechanical
Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Mobile Robotics Laboratory, 1101 Beal
Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
[3] Thrun S et al. Stanley: the robot that won the DARPA grand challenge: research
articles. J Rob Syst 2006;23(9):66192.
[4] Urmson C et al. A robust approach to high-speed navigation for unrehearsed
desert terrain. J Field Rob 2006;23(8):467508.
[5] Borenstein J, Feng L. Correction of systematic odometry errors in mobile
robots. In: IEEE international conference on intelligent robots and systems,
Pittsburgh, PA; August 1995. p. 56974.
595
[6] Doh NL, Choset H, Chung WK. Accurate relative localization using odometry.
In: IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, Taipei, Taiwan;
September 2003. p. 160612.
[7] Kelly A. Linearized error propagation in odometry. Int J Rob Res 2004;23(2):
179218.
[8] Martinelli A. The odometry error of a mobile robot with a synchronous drive
system. IEEE Trans Rob Autom 2002;18(3):399405.
[9] Philip J. Mckerrow, Danny Ratner. Calibrating a 4-wheel mobile robot, IEEE/RSJ.
In: Intl conference on intelligent robots and systems, Lausanne, Switzerland;
October 2002. p. 85964 .
[10] Thrun S, Burgard W, Fox D. A probabilistic approach to concurrent mapping
and localization for mobile robots. Mach Learning 1998;31:2953.
[11] Bento LC, Nunes U, Moita F, Surrcio A. Sensor fusion for precise autonomous
vehicle navigation in outdoor semi-structured environments. In: IEEE int conf
on intelligent transportation systems (ITSC2005), Basel, Switzerland; May
2005. p. 24550.
[12] Surrcio A, Nunes U, Arajo R. Fusion of odometry with magnetic sensors using
kalman lters and augmented system models for mobile robot navigation. In:
In IEEE int symposium on industrial electronics, Dubrovnik, Croatia; June
2005. p. 15516.
[13] Dellaert F, Fox D, Burgard W, Thrun S. Monte Carlo localization for mobile
robots. In: IEEE intl conf on robotics and automation, Detroit, Michigan; May
1999. p. 13228.
[14] Smith A, Doucet Arnaud, de Freitas Nando, Gordon Neil. Sequential Monte
Carlo methods in practice. 1st ed. Springer; 2001.
[15] Borges G, Aldon MJ. An optimal pose estimator for map-based mobile robot
dynamic localization: experimental comparison with the EKF. In: IEEE
international conference on robotics and automation, Seoul, Korea; May
2001. p. 158590.
[16] Philippe Bonnifait, Pascal Bouron. Data fusion of four ABS sensors and GPS for
an enhanced localization of car-like vehicles. In: IEEE international conference
on robotics & automation, Seoul, Korea; May 2001. p. 1597602.
[17] Kooktae Lee, Woojin Chung. Calibration of kinematic parameters of a car-like
mobile robot to improve odometry accuracy. In: IEEE international conference
on robotics and automation, Pasadena, CA; May 2008. p. 254651.
[18] Corral Celestino A. On implementing Kasas circle t procedure. IEEE Trans
Instrum Meas 1998;47(3):78995.