Landmark Placement for Localization in a GPS-denied Environment

Path planning algorithms for unmanned aerial or ground vehicles, in many surveillance applications, rely on Global Positioning System (GPS) information for localization. However, disruption of GPS signals, by intention or otherwise, can render these plans and algorithms ineffective. This article provides a way of addressing this issue by utilizing stationary landmarks to aid localization in such GPS-disrupted or GPS-denied environment. In particular, given the vehicle's path, we formulate a landmark-placement problem and present algorithms to place the minimum number of landmarks while satisfying the localization, sensing, and collision-avoidance constraints. The performance of such a placement is also evaluated via extensive simulations on ground robots.