To further improve the NLOS detection and mitigation performance for Ultra-wideband (UWB) system, this thesis systematically investigates the UWB LOS/NLOS errors. The LOS errors are evaluated in different environments and with different distances. Different blockage materials and blockage conditions are considered for NLOS errors. The UWB signal propagation is also investigated. Furthermore, the relationships between the CIRs and the accurate/inaccurate range measurements are theoretically discussed in three different situations: ideal LOS path, small-scale fading: multipath and NLOS path. These theoretical relationships are validated with real measured CIRs in the Bosch Shanghai office environment. Based on the error and signal propagation investigation results, four different algorithms are proposed for four different scenarios to improve the NLOS identification accuracy. After the comparison of the localization performance for TOA/TDOA, it is found that on normal office floor, TOA works better than TDOA. In harsh industrial environments, where NLOS frequently occurs, TDOA is more suitable than TOA. Thus, in the first scenario, the position estimation is realized with TOA on the office floor, while in the second scenario, a novel approach to combined TOA and TDOA with accurate range and range difference selection is proposed in the harsh industrial environment. The optimization of the feature combination and parameters in machine learning algorithms for accurate measurement detection is discussed for both scenarios. For the third and fourth scenarios, the UWB/IMU fusion system stays in focus. Instead of detecting the NLOS outliers by assuming that the error distributions are Gaussian, the accurate measurement detection is realized based on the triangle inequality theorem. All the proposed approaches are tested with the collected measurements from the developed UWB system. The position estimation of these approaches has better accuracy than that of the traditional methods.

Since the manipulation tasks for robotic systems become more and more complicated, multi-robot cooperation has been attracting much attention recently. Furthermore, under the trend of human-robot co-existence, collision-free motion control is now also desired on multi-robot groups. This dissertation aims to design a novel distributed optimal control framework to deal with multi-robot cooperative manipulation of rigid objects in dynamic environments. Besides object transportation, the control scheme also tackles obstacle avoidance, joint-space performance optimisation and internal force suppression. The proposed control framework has a two-layer structure, with a distributed optimisation algorithm in the kinematic layer for generating proper joint configuration references, followed by a robot motion controller in the dynamic control layer to fulfil the reference. An indirect and a direct distributed optimisation method are developed for the kinematic layer, both of which are computationally and communicationally efficient. In the dynamic control layer, impedance control is employed for safe physical interaction. As another highlight, abundant experiments carried out on a multi-arm test bench have demonstrated the effectiveness of the presented control schemes under various environmental and task settings. The recorded computation time shows the applicability of the control framework in practice.

With respect to the future urban mobility, modern electrical bicycles, advanced motorcycles and innovative two-wheeled vehicles are arresting enormous amount of attention. Especially, model-based control and optimal trajectory planning for such vehicles are important to the research and development of the future. Therefore, a reliable and yet usable vehicle model as well as a systematic approach to motion control for two-wheeled vehicles are essential, to which this work makes a contribution. Currently available two-wheeled vehicle models are mostly either too complex to be used for a systematic control synthesis, or too simple such that the physical behaviour of the vehicle is no more represented. In this thesis, a unifying approach to modelling and control for autonomous two-wheeled vehicles is presented. The resulting model is generally valid and physically detailed enough to represent the characteristic dynamical behaviour such as the self-stability. At the same time, it is suited to a systematic control synthesis. Furthermore, the systematic extenddability, for instance by a rider, is demonstrated. The model is validated by simulations and by comparison to well-known models from the literature. The proposed vehicle model is derived in the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian framework and used for model-based optimal trajectory planning. Furthermore, a passivity-based trajectory tracking controller is designed based on the resulting port-Hamiltonian system using the so-called generalised canonical transformations. Such a controller is physically interpretable and robust against parameter uncertainties. To this end, existing approaches of passivity-based controller design are extended and adjusted for two-wheeled vehicles. Finally, a prototype two-wheeled vehicle is introduced which is used for experimental validation of the model and to demonstrate motion control algorithms for autonomous two-wheeled vehicles.

Despite the enormous technical progress seen in the past few years, the maturity of indoor localization technologies has not yet reached the level of GNSS solutions. The 23 selected papers in this book present the recent advances and new developments in indoor localization systems and technologies, propose novel or improved methods with increased performance, provide insight into various aspects of quality control, and also introduce some unorthodox positioning methods.

In the age of automation the ability to navigate persons and devices in indoor environments has become increasingly important for a rising number of applications. However, we are still far away from achieving cheap provision of global indoor positioning with an accuracy of 1 meter or better. With the emergence of global satellite positioning systems, the performance of outdoor positioning has become excellent, but many mass market applications require seamless positioning capabilities in all environments. Therefore indoor positioning has become a focus of research and development during the past decade. This book categorizes all sighted indoor positioning approaches into 13 distinct technologies and describes the measuring principles of each. Individual approaches are characterized and key performance parameters are quantified.

Wireless localization techniques are an area that has attracted interest from both industry and academia, with self-localization capability providing a highly desirable characteristic of wireless sensor networks. Localization Algorithms and Strategies for Wireless Sensor Networks encompasses the significant and fast growing area of wireless localization techniques. This book provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of topics and fundamental theories underpinning measurement techniques and localization algorithms. A useful compilation for academicians, researchers, and practitioners, this Premier Reference Source contains relevant references and the latest studies emerging out of the wireless sensor network field.

This book provides a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of wireless indoor localization for ubiquitous applications. The past decade has witnessed a flourishing of WiFi-based indoor localization, which has become one of the most popular localization solutions and has attracted considerable attention from both the academic and industrial communities. Specifically focusing on WiFi fingerprint based localization via crowdsourcing, the book follows a top-down approach and explores the three most important aspects of wireless indoor localization: deployment, maintenance, and service accuracy. After extensively reviewing the state-of-the-art literature, it highlights the latest advances in crowdsourcing-enabled WiFi localization. It elaborated the ideas, methods and systems for implementing the crowdsourcing approach for fingerprint-based localization. By tackling the problems such as: deployment costs of fingerprint database construction, maintenance overhead of fingerprint database updating, floor plan generation, and location errors, the book offers a valuable reference guide for technicians and practitioners in the field of location-based services. As the first of its kind, introducing readers to WiFi-based localization from a crowdsourcing perspective, it will greatly benefit and appeal to scientists and researchers in mobile and ubiquitous computing and related areas.