Expectancy-based robot localization through context evaluation

Agents that operate in a real-world environment have to process an abundance of information, which may be ambiguous or noisy. We present a method inspired by cognitive research that keeps track of sensory information, and interprets it with knowledge of the context. We test this model on visual information from the real-world environment of a mobile robot in order to improve its self-localization. We use a topological map to represent the environment, which is an abstract representation of distinct places and the connections between them. Expectancies of the place of the robot on the map are combined with evidence from observations to reach the best prediction of the next place of the robot. These expectancies make a place prediction more robust to ambiguous and noisy observations. Results of the model operating on data gathered by a mobile robot confirm that context evaluation improves localization compared to a data-driven model.