Integrated exploration using time-based potential rails

Abstract

Integrated exploration is the most complete task in mobile robotics, and corresponds to the union of mapping, localization and motion planning. A powerful integrated exploration solution must take into account decisions that improve the quality of the map construction, such as closing loops, at the same time that the environment is explored. Potential fields and boundary value problems (BVP) have been used with success in tasks of planning, localization and exploration, but not yet in integrated strategies. In this paper, we present an integrated exploration strategy using a time varying BVP-based exploration. Our strategy consists of creating potential rails that guide the robot to regions that are either unexplored or were visited a long time ago. We also apply local distortions in the potential field to generate a loop closure strategy. Experimental results demonstrate that our method improves the quality of the map construction, keeping the balance between revisiting and exploratory activities.

Indoor Visual Exploration with Multi-Rotor Aerial Robotic Vehicles

“…Proposition 4 (Proposition ( 8) in [33]). The proposed control protocol (13) and (21) ensures that the trajectories of ṗi = u i , i ∈ I are safe.…”

“…The above propositions ensure that the proposed velocity field has the necessary properties that will result in safe exploration of the whole workspace for each drone in finite time. Additionally, in (13), we propose a modification with respect to [33], which includes the distances between drones that lie inside the sensor radius of each other and results in safety between drones. In order to guarantee this additional type of safety, an additional feature is proposed; namely, within the OCG of each drone, we place a "fictional" obstacle, equivalent to the superscribing sphere S 2 i that was discussed in Section 3.…”

“…These methods can therefore provide an efficient alternative for autonomous guidance during exploration. Towards this direction, HPFs with Dirichlet boundary conditions [ 12 ], Voronoi diagrams and distorted HPFs [ 13 ] both for 2D and even for 3D spaces [ 14 ] have been presented in the literature. However, constructing such harmonic potential fields often presents numerical and computational challenges and are especially susceptible to the curse of dimensionality, scaling poorly as the size and dimensions of the workspace increase.…”