DECENTRALIZED AUTONOMOUS MULTIPLE-SMART SENSORS SYSTEM

To tackle the complexity of robotic multiple sensor fusion, a suitable system structure is required. Most structures at present have a fusion center to deal with information from various sensors located at different points, but unfortunately they have no necessary connections between low level sensors. Consequently fusion center has more responsibility for communication and signal interpretation, which resulted in bottle neck problem. Moreover, sensors cannot help each other to improve task environment recognition efficiency. To overcome the above problems, we define the concept of smart sensor at first. Each smart sensor should have five abilities : prediction, planning, updating, communication and assimilation. Then we discuss the algorithm of a perception system which consists of several smart sensors. Finally we take active tactile and active stereo camera as an example to illustrate the principle of our new idea.