The Map-Building and Exploration Strategies of a Simple Sonar-Equipped Mobile Robot
An Experimental, Quantitative Evaluation

First book to describe a way of determining the best method to use to enable a robot to navigate.

D. C. Lee (Author)

9780521542159, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 September 2003

244 pages, 92 b/w illus. 23 tables
24.7 x 18.9 x 1.5 cm, 0.45 kg

There are two radically different approaches to robot navigation: the first is to use a map of the robot's environment; the second uses a set of action reflexes to enable a robot to react rapidly to local sensory information. Hybrid approaches combining features of both also exist. This book is the first to propose a method for evaluating the different approaches that shows how to decide which is the most appropriate for a given situation. It begins by describing a complete implementation of a mobile robot including sensor modelling, map–building (a feature–based map and a grid–based free–space map), localisation, and path–planning. Exploration strategies are then tested experimentally in a range of environments and starting positions. The author shows the most promising results are observed from hybrid exploration strategies which combine the robustness of reactive navigation and the directive power of map–based strategies.

1. Question, context and method
Part I. Starting Points: 2. Maps used in previous research
3. The maps used in this research
4. Approaches to exploration
Part II. System Components: 5. The robot
6. Modelling the sonar sensor
7. Map construction
8. Path planning
9. Localisation
10. Map quality metrics
Part III. Experiments: 11. Experimental evaluation
12. Wall–following
13. The results of localisation
14 Supervised wall–following
15. Can a human do any better? 16. Longest lines of sight
17. Free space boundaries
18. Summary of experimental results
19. Conclusion
20. Directions for further research
Appendices
Bibliography
Index

Subject Areas: Computer science [UY], Robotics [TJFM1]