根据沙蚁Cataglyphis的导航机理研制了一种检测天空偏振光的导航传感器。为测试传感器室外导航性能，设计了采用传感器输出的航向角控制移动机器人按特定轨迹运动的实验。首先，介绍传感器的结构原理及功能模型，为提高传感器精度，在室内用光学积分球模拟天空偏振光源，用精密转台对传感器输出角度进行补偿，补偿后传感器误差在±0.2°以内。然后，简要说明采用的移动机器人平台结构和采用传感器导航的方法。最后，描述导航实验过程，得到了利用光电编码盘输出角度信息与利用偏振光传感器输出航向角两种导航方法的对比实验结果。结果显示，偏振光传感器导航相对于光电编码盘较为精确，二者平均位置误差分别是1.17 cm和31.6 cm。实验证实偏振光传感器误差不随时间累积，能够自主完成移动机器人导航，可用于移动载体自主导航系统。

A novel polarization sensor based on the mechanism of Sahara ant Cataglyphis was developed. To acquire the navigation performance of the sensor outside, several tests which used the output navigation angle of the sensor to control the mobile robot to move along a designed map was conducted. First, the structure and function prototype of the polarization sensor was presented. To improve the performance of polarization sensor, the optic integrating sphere was used as the polarized light source to replace the sky light, and the precision rotating table was taken as the standard angle to compensate the output angle of the sensor. After the compensation process, the angle output error of polarization sensor is within ±0.2°. Then, the mobile robot and how to use the polarization sensor to control the robot were briefly introduced. Finally, the process of navigation tests and the navigation performance comparison of the optical encoder and the polarization sensor were given.Results show that the latter method is better than the first one, and their average navigation position errors are 1.17 cm and 31.6 cm,respectively. According to the tests, the error of the polarization sensor doesn′t ac-cumulate with the time and can give the navigation message independently.In conclusion, it wouldplay an important role in the automation navigation systems in further way.