Mobile robots are becoming more heavily used in environments where human involvement is limited, impossible, or dangerous. These robots perform some of the more laborious human tasks on Earth and throughout the solar system, simultaneously saving resources and offering automation. Higher levels of autonomy are also being sought in these applications, such as distributed exploration and mapping of unknown areas. Smaller, less expensive mobile robots are becoming more prevalent, which introduces unique challenges in terms of limited sensing accuracy and onboard computing resources. This paper presents a novel low-cost, limited-resource approach to autonomous multi-robot mapping and exploration in unstructured environments. Design and implementation details are presented, along with results from two planetary style environments. Results demonstrate that low-cost (US-Dollar 1250) mobile robots capable of simultaneous localization and mapping can be successfully constructed. The multi-robot system presented in this paper participated in the 2008 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Space Robotics Challenge, receiving two awards for successfully completing the 'Onto the Surface' and 'Map the Environment' events in a simulated planetary environment. This work demonstrates not only that such systems are possible, but also that this direction of research is important and needs attention.


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    Title :

    A novel low-cost, limited-resource approach to autonomous multi-robot exploration and mapping


    Additional title:

    Ein neuartiges kostengünstiges Herangehen an Multirobotererforschung und -kartierung bei begrenzten Mitteln


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2010


    Size :

    17 Seiten, 20 Bilder, 1 Tabelle, 32 Quellen




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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