3,762 research outputs found
osmAG: Hierarchical Semantic Topometric Area Graph Maps in the OSM Format for Mobile Robotics
Maps are essential to mobile robotics tasks like localization and planning.
We propose the open street map (osm) XML based Area Graph file format to store
hierarchical, topometric semantic multi-floor maps of indoor and outdoor
environments, since currently no such format is popular within the robotics
community. Building on-top of osm we leverage the available open source editing
tools and libraries of osm, while adding the needed mobile robotics aspect with
building-level obstacle representation yet very compact, topometric data that
facilitates planning algorithms. Through the use of common osm keys as well as
custom ones we leverage the power of semantic annotation to enable various
applications. For example, we support planning based on robot capabilities, to
take the locomotion mode and attributes in conjunction with the environment
information into account. The provided C++ library is integrated into ROS. We
evaluate the performance of osmAG using real data in a global path planning
application on a very big osmAG map, demonstrating its convenience and
effectiveness for mobile robots.Comment: 7 page
System of Terrain Analysis, Energy Estimation and Path Planning for Planetary Exploration by Robot Teams
NASA’s long term plans involve a return to manned moon missions, and eventually sending humans to mars. The focus of this project is the use of autonomous mobile robotics to enhance these endeavors. This research details the creation of a system of terrain classification, energy of traversal estimation and low cost path planning for teams of inexpensive and potentially expendable robots.
The first stage of this project was the creation of a model which estimates the energy requirements of the traversal of varying terrain types for a six wheel rocker-bogie rover. The wheel/soil interaction model uses Shibly’s modified Bekker equations and incorporates a new simplified rocker-bogie model for estimating wheel loads. In all but a single trial the relative energy requirements for each soil type were correctly predicted by the model.
A path planner for complete coverage intended to minimize energy consumption was designed and tested. It accepts as input terrain maps detailing the energy consumption required to move to each adjacent location. Exploration is performed via a cost function which determines the robot’s next move. This system was successfully tested for multiple robots by means of a shared exploration map. At peak efficiency, the energy consumed by our path planner was only 56% that used by the best case back and forth coverage pattern.
After performing a sensitivity analysis of Shibly’s equations to determine which soil parameters most affected energy consumption, a neural network terrain classifier was designed and tested. The terrain classifier defines all traversable terrain as one of three soil types and then assigns an assumed set of soil parameters. The classifier performed well over all, but had some difficulty distinguishing large rocks from sand.
This work presents a system which successfully classifies terrain imagery into one of three soil types, assesses the energy requirements of terrain traversal for these soil types and plans efficient paths of complete coverage for the imaged area. While there are further efforts that can be made in all areas, the work achieves its stated goals
NafisNav: an Indoor Navigation Algorithm for Embedded Systems and based on Grid Maps
Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. N. O. Eraghi, F. López-Colino, A. de Castro and J. Garrido, "NafisNav: An indoor navigation algorithm for embedded systems and based on grid maps," 2015 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT), Seville, 2015, pp. 345-350. doi: 10.1109/ICIT.2015.7125122An important goal in navigation of low cost robots is low memory usage. In this paper, we propose a novel navigation algorithm (NafisNav) suitable for embedded systems with low resources, mainly memory. The proposed path finding algorithm is designed and implemented in grid maps. Unlike existing algorithms, that mainly focus on obtaining the shortest possible path for navigation, the proposed algorithm focuses on reducing memory consumption, even at the cost of not always obtaining the best path. Experimental results show the trade-off between path length and memory consumption that is obtained, comparing it with typical algorithms such as Dijkstra or A*.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under project TEC2009-09871
End-to-end Reinforcement Learning for Online Coverage Path Planning in Unknown Environments
Coverage path planning is the problem of finding the shortest path that
covers the entire free space of a given confined area, with applications
ranging from robotic lawn mowing and vacuum cleaning, to demining and
search-and-rescue tasks. While offline methods can find provably complete, and
in some cases optimal, paths for known environments, their value is limited in
online scenarios where the environment is not known beforehand, especially in
the presence of non-static obstacles. We propose an end-to-end reinforcement
learning-based approach in continuous state and action space, for the online
coverage path planning problem that can handle unknown environments. We
construct the observation space from both global maps and local sensory inputs,
allowing the agent to plan a long-term path, and simultaneously act on
short-term obstacle detections. To account for large-scale environments, we
propose to use a multi-scale map input representation. Furthermore, we propose
a novel total variation reward term for eliminating thin strips of uncovered
space in the learned path. To validate the effectiveness of our approach, we
perform extensive experiments in simulation with a distance sensor, surpassing
the performance of a recent reinforcement learning-based approach
TDLE: 2-D LiDAR Exploration With Hierarchical Planning Using Regional Division
Exploration systems are critical for enhancing the autonomy of robots. Due to
the unpredictability of the future planning space, existing methods either
adopt an inefficient greedy strategy or require a lot of resources to obtain a
global solution. In this work, we address the challenge of obtaining global
exploration routes with minimal computing resources. A hierarchical planning
framework dynamically divides the planning space into subregions and arranges
their orders to provide global guidance for exploration. Indicators that are
compatible with the subregion order are used to choose specific exploration
targets, thereby considering estimates of spatial structure and extending the
planning space to unknown regions. Extensive simulations and field tests
demonstrate the efficacy of our method in comparison to existing 2D LiDAR-based
approaches. Our code has been made public for further investigation.Comment: Accepted in IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and
Engineering (CASE) 202
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