The optical mouse for indoor mobile robot odometry measurement

In this work the optical mouse is proposed for indoor odometry measurement in mobile robot applications. The optical mouse is a very low-cost sensor and has the advantage that the measured displacement is independent from the kinematics of the robot because the optical sensor uses external natural microscopic ground landmarks to obtain the effective relative displacement. In this work the sensor is calibrated and evaluated for odometry measurement. It was found that the original conception inside a visual feedback loop precludes its use as an isolated displacement sensor although its impressive speed and parts, with a CMOS camera and a digital signal processor embedded on the same chip, suggests that an improved design can be a good alternative for accurate mobile robot odometry measurement.