First results in eliminating crosstalk and noise by applying pseudo-random sequences to mobile robot sonar sensing

Crosstalk is one of the most severe problems in conventional mobile robot sonar sensing. This paper addresses the crosstalk-problem and presents first and promising results of a new approach which enables a mobile robot to fire its sonar sensors simultaneously while totally eliminating misreadings caused by crosstalk or external ultrasound sources. This is achieved by carefully designing the emitted burst, i.e. by using appropriate pseudorandom sequences together with a matched filter technique. Experimental results are presented. IROS '96 IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems Osaka, Japan ¥ November 4-8, 1996