The challenge of autonomous indoor mapping is addressed. The goal is to minimize the time required to achieve a predefined percentage of coverage with some desired level of certainty. The use of a pre-trained generative deep neural network, acting as a map predictor, in both the motion planning and the map construction is proposed in order to expedite the mapping process. The issue of planning under partial observability is tackled by maintaining a belief map of the floorplan, generated by a deep neural network. This allows the agent to shorten the mapping duration, as well as enabling it to make better-informed decisions. This method is examined in combination with several motion planners for two distinct floorplan datasets. Simulations are run for several configurations of the integrated map predictor, the results of which reveal that by utilizing the prediction a significant reduction in mapping time is possible. When the prediction is integrated in both motion planning and map construction processes it is shown that the mapping time may in some cases be cut by over 50%.

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The challenge of mapping indoor environments is addressed. Typical heuristic algorithms for solving the motion planning problem are frontier-based methods, that are especially effective when the environment is completely unknown. However, in cases where prior statistical data on the environment's architectonic features is available, such algorithms can be far from optimal. Furthermore, their calculation time may increase substantially as more areas are exposed. In this paper we propose two means by which to overcome these shortcomings. One is the use of deep reinforcement learning to train the motion planner. The second is the inclusion of a pre-trained generative deep neural network, acting as a map predictor. Each one helps to improve the decision making through use of the learned structural statistics of the environment, and both, being realized as neural networks, ensure a constant calculation time. We show that combining the two methods can shorten the mapping time, compared to frontier-based motion planning, by up to 75%.