Abstract: Pose estimation is a key issue in mobile robots and important to moving objects tracking, robot navigation, map building, etc. A real-time pose estimation method using 2D range data from a laser radar is presented, which consists Of iterative tangent weighted closest point and Hough transform based tangent angle histogram algorithms to overcome problems with past methods, such as local minimum, aperture like, high computation problem, etc. this method has been tested on both synthetic and real range data collected in outdoor environment．Experimental results demonstrate its high accuracy, Low computation, wide applicability and}6gh robustness to aperture-like proble. mocclusion and noises.