Roomba Navigation Comparison Between Onboard Wheel Encoders and External Inertial Measurements

To be able to remotely control a motorized robot to go to any point you tell it requires the use of a method called dead reckoning. Dead reckoning requires accurate measurements of rotation and distance travelled in relation to the environment. Our research group decided to test two ways of finding the rotation of our motorized robotic vehicle, a Roomba vacuum cleaner. The two methods included using wheel encoder values, which are used to measure rotation of the Roomba's wheels, and an external inertial measurement unit (IMU), which is equipped with a gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer. The goal was to determine the most accurate method of calculating how much the Roomba has rotated for improved calculation of movement in relation to its origin.