Integrating and modelling sensors: An approach to low-cost robotics systems using multilayer perceptrons.

In this article we deal with the problem of modelling the sensory behaviour of sensors in a low cost robotics systems, modelling the uncertainty of the taken measurements and fusing different measurements, in order to improve the quality of the information the robotics system needs. It is achieved thanks to a sensory model based on multilaer perceptrons, trained off-line. This model not only improves the quality of the information, but also grants independence between hardware and software of the robotics system. Some experiments have been made, using the mobile robot UMIT, in order to demonstrate the utility of this model. These experiments show how sensory model corrects ultrasonic reflection effect and sliding of wheels.