Robotic mapping

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Robotic mapping is a discipline related to computer vision [1] and cartography. The goal for an autonomous robot is to be able to construct (or use) a map (outdoor use) or floor plan (indoor use) and to localize itself and its recharging bases or beacons in it. Robotic mapping is that branch which deals with the study and application of ability to localize itself in a map / plan and sometimes to construct the map or floor plan by the autonomous robot.

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Evolutionarily shaped blind action may suffice to keep some animals alive. For some insects for example, the environment is not interpreted as a map, and they survive only with a triggered response. A slightly more elaborated navigation strategy dramatically enhances the capabilities of the robot. Cognitive maps enable planning capacities and use of current perceptions, memorized events, and expected consequences.

Operation

The robot has two sources of information: the idiothetic and the allothetic sources. When in motion, a robot can use dead reckoning methods such as tracking the number of revolutions of its wheels; this corresponds to the idiothetic source and can give the absolute position of the robot, but it is subject to cumulative error which can grow quickly.

The allothetic source corresponds the sensors of the robot, like a camera, a microphone, laser, lidar or sonar.[ citation needed ] The problem here is "perceptual aliasing". This means that two different places can be perceived as the same. For example, in a building, it is nearly impossible to determine a location solely with the visual information, because all the corridors may look the same. [2] 3-dimensional models of a robot's environment can be generated using range imaging sensors [3] or 3D scanners. [4] [5]

Map representation

The internal representation of the map can be "metric" or "topological": [6]

Many techniques use probabilistic representations of the map, in order to handle uncertainty.

There are three main methods of map representations, i.e., free space maps, object maps, and composite maps. These employ the notion of a grid, but permit the resolution of the grid to vary so that it can become finer where more accuracy is needed and more coarse where the map is uniform.

Map learning

Map learning cannot be separated from the localization process, and a difficulty arises when errors in localization are incorporated into the map. This problem is commonly referred to as Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).

An important additional problem is to determine whether the robot is in a part of environment already stored or never visited. One way to solve this problem is by using electric beacons, Near field communication (NFC), WiFi, Visible light communication (VLC) and Li-Fi and Bluetooth. [7]

Path planning

Path planning is an important issue as it allows a robot to get from point A to point B. Path planning algorithms are measured by their computational complexity. The feasibility of real-time motion planning is dependent on the accuracy of the map (or floorplan), on robot localization and on the number of obstacles. Topologically, the problem of path planning is related to the shortest path problem of finding a route between two nodes in a graph.

Robot navigation

Outdoor robots can use GPS in a similar way to automotive navigation systems.

Alternative systems can be used with floor plan and beacons instead of maps for indoor robots, combined with localization wireless hardware. [8] Electric beacons can help for cheap robot navigational systems.

See also

Related Research Articles

An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history that were programmed to "think" the way biological brains do and meant to have free will. Elmer and Elsie were often labeled as tortoises because of how they were shaped and the manner in which they moved. They were capable of phototaxis which is the movement that occurs in response to light stimulus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dead reckoning</span> Means of calculating position

In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating the current position of a moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and incorporating estimates of speed, heading, and elapsed time. The corresponding term in biology, to describe the processes by which animals update their estimates of position or heading, is path integration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simultaneous localization and mapping</span> Computational navigational technique used by robots and autonomous vehicles

Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is the computational problem of constructing or updating a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously keeping track of an agent's location within it. While this initially appears to be a chicken or the egg problem, there are several algorithms known to solve it in, at least approximately, tractable time for certain environments. Popular approximate solution methods include the particle filter, extended Kalman filter, covariance intersection, and GraphSLAM. SLAM algorithms are based on concepts in computational geometry and computer vision, and are used in robot navigation, robotic mapping and odometry for virtual reality or augmented reality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swarm robotics</span> Coordination of multiple robots as a system

Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. ″In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between the robots and between the robots and the environment in which they act.″ It is supposed that a desired collective behavior emerges from the interactions between the robots and interactions of robots with the environment. This approach emerged on the field of artificial swarm intelligence, as well as the biological studies of insects, ants and other fields in nature, where swarm behaviour occurs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PatrolBot</span>

PatrolBot is a programmable autonomous general purpose service robot rover built by MobileRobots Inc. PatrolBots are manufactured in various configurations and serve as bases for companies developing delivery robots, security robots, environmental monitoring rovers, robot guides, and other indoor service robots.

The Denning Mobile Robot Company of Boston was the first company to offer ready-made autonomous robots that were subsequently purchased primarily by researchers. Grinnell More's Real World Interface, Inc. (RWI) and James Slater's Nomadic Technologies (US), along with Francesco Mondada's K-Team (Switzerland), were other pioneering companies in this field, addressing the need for ready-made robots for use by robotics researchers. RWI created the B-21, Nomadic the XR4000, whilst the tiny Khepera mobile robot emerged from the stables of the Swiss K-Team. However, the high price of these machines meant that only a few graduate students and military researchers could afford them. Eventually, the low-cost Pioneer robot was introduced in 1995, a project that expanded research in mobile robotics due to the affordable price.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Dudek</span>

Gregory L. Dudek is a Canadian computer scientist specializing in robotics, computer vision, and intelligent systems. He is a chaired professor at McGill University where he has led the Mobile Robotics Lab since the 1990s. He was formerly the director of McGill's school of computer science and before that director of McGill's center for intelligent machines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile robot</span> Type of robot

A mobile robot is an automatic machine that is capable of locomotion. Mobile robotics is usually considered to be a subfield of robotics and information engineering.

Motion planning, also path planning is a computational problem to find a sequence of valid configurations that moves the object from the source to destination. The term is used in computational geometry, computer animation, robotics and computer games.

A positioning system is a system for determining the position of an object in space. One of the most well-known and commonly used positioning systems is the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Mobile Autonomous Robot Vehicle for Indoor Navigation (Marvin) is a mobile robot developed at Robotics Lab at University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. This platform consists of a differential drive, a bumper for basic operational safety, planar laser range scanners at the front and back side for obstacle detection, a belt of ultrasonic sensors for recognizing jutting edges such as table tops, a web cam, another fixed laser scanner at a height of one meter for a view free of clutter and a stereo microphone system for localization of sound sources. Its control system follows a behavior-based approach and its mapping abilities rely on a 2D geometric and topological strategy.

In robotics, obstacle avoidance is the task of satisfying some control objective subject to non-intersection or non-collision position constraints. What is critical about obstacle avoidance concept in this area is the growing need of usage of unmanned aerial vehicles in urban areas for especially military applications where it can be very useful in city wars. Normally obstacle avoidance is considered to be distinct from path planning in that one is usually implemented as a reactive control law while the other involves the pre-computation of an obstacle-free path which a controller will then guide a robot along. With recent advanced in the autonomous vehicles sector, a good and dependable obstacle avoidance feature of a driverless platform is also required to have a robust obstacle detection module.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indoor positioning system</span>

An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a network of devices used to locate people or objects where GPS and other satellite technologies lack precision or fail entirely, such as inside multistory buildings, airports, alleys, parking garages, and underground locations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robot navigation</span> Robots ability to navigate

Robot localization denotes the robot's ability to establish its own position and orientation within the frame of reference. Path planning is effectively an extension of localisation, in that it requires the determination of the robot's current position and a position of a goal location, both within the same frame of reference or coordinates. Map building can be in the shape of a metric map or any notation describing locations in the robot frame of reference.

Occupancy Grid Mapping refers to a family of computer algorithms in probabilistic robotics for mobile robots which address the problem of generating maps from noisy and uncertain sensor measurement data, with the assumption that the robot pose is known. Occupancy grids were first proposed by H. Moravec and A. Elfes in 1985.

The Guidance, Control and Decision Systems Laboratory (GCDSL) is situated in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. The Mobile Robotics Laboratory (MRL) is its experimental division. They are headed by Dr. Debasish Ghose, Full Professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit</span>

The Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit (MRPT) is a cross-platform and open source C++ library aimed to help robotics researchers to design and implement algorithms related to Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), computer vision and motion planning. Different research groups have employed MRPT to implement projects reported in some of the major robotics journals and conferences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Any-angle path planning</span>

Any-angle path planning algorithms are pathfinding algorithms that search for a Euclidean shortest path between two points on a grid map while allowing the turns in the path to have any angle. The result is a path that cuts directly through open areas and has relatively few turns. More traditional pathfinding algorithms such as A* either lack in performance or produce jagged, indirect paths.

An autonomous aircraft is an aircraft which flies under the control of automatic systems and needs no intervention from a human pilot. Most autonomous aircraft are unmanned aerial vehicle or drones. However, autonomous control systems are reaching a point where several air taxis and associated regulatory regimes are being developed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Air-Cobot</span> French research and development project (2013–)

Air-Cobot (Aircraft Inspection enhanced by smaRt & Collaborative rOBOT) is a French research and development project of a wheeled collaborative mobile robot able to inspect aircraft during maintenance operations. This multi-partner project involves research laboratories and industry. Research around this prototype was developed in three domains: autonomous navigation, human-robot collaboration and nondestructive testing.

References

  1. Fernández-Madrigal, Juan-Antonio (30 September 2012). Simultaneous Localization and Mapping for Mobile Robots: Introduction and Methods: Introduction and Methods. IGI Global. ISBN   978-1-4666-2105-3.
  2. Filliat, David, and Jean-Arcady Meyer. "Map-based navigation in mobile robots:: I. a review of localization strategies." Cognitive Systems Research 4.4 (2003): 243-282.
  3. Jensen, Björn, et al. Laser range imaging using mobile robots: From pose estimation to 3D-models. ETH-Zürich, 2005, 2005.
  4. Surmann, Hartmut, Andreas Nüchter, and Joachim Hertzberg. "An autonomous mobile robot with a 3D laser range finder for 3D exploration and digitalization of indoor environments." Robotics and Autonomous Systems 45.3-4 (2003): 181-198.
  5. Malik, Aamir Saeed (30 November 2011). Depth Map and 3D Imaging Applications: Algorithms and Technologies: Algorithms and Technologies. IGI Global. ISBN   978-1-61350-327-0.
  6. Thrun, Sebastian. "Learning metric-topological maps for indoor mobile robot navigation." Artificial Intelligence 99.1 (1998): 21-71.
  7. "Your partner in creating smart indoor spaces". IndoorAtlas.
  8. "An Autonomous Passive RFID-Assisted Mobile Robot System for Indoor Positioning" (PDF). Retrieved 19 October 2015.