Development of an Integrated Mobile Robot System at Carnegie Mellon University: June 1988
Abstract
This program focused on the NAVLAB computer-controlled van. During this report period, we addressed major issues in both hardware and software for integrated autonomous mobile robots: 1) We built the NAVLAB mobile robot vehicle by outfitting a commercial truck chassis with computer-controlled drive and steering controls and a set of on-board computer workstations. The NAVLAB serves as a mobile navigation laboratory that allows researchers to interact intensively with the system during testing and execution. This year has seen a continued evolution and improvement of the NAVLAB mechanism, sensors, controller, and Virtual Vehicle interface to higher-level planning and perception software. 2) Previously we designed and implemented the CODGER blackboard system for robot perception and reasoning on a distributed collection of processors. This year we have upgraded it to deal with geometric models and uncertainty in perception and map data. 3) To control the NAVLAB and Terregator mobile robot vehicles, we developed the Driving Pipeline architecture last year for coordinating road following, obstacle avoidance, and vehicle motion control. In our ongoing research, we performed numerous experiments with this system that demonstrate its value. This hardware and software is the basis for the New Generation System (NGS) for robot vision and navigation, which integrates many independent technologies. (edc)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA215955
Entities
People
- Steve Shafer
- William Whittaker
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University