Learning Maps for Indoor Mobile Robot Navigation.
Abstract
Autonomous robots must be able to learn and maintain models of their environments. Research on mobile robot navigation has produced two major paradigms for mapping indoor environments: grid-based and topological. While grid-based methods produce accurate metric maps, their complexity often prohibits efficient planning and problem solving in large-scale indoor environments. Topological maps, on the other hand, can be used much more efficiently, yet accurate and consistent topological maps are considerably difficult to learn in large-scale environments. This paper describes an approach that integrates both paradigms: grid-based and topological. Grid-based maps are learned using artificial neural networks and Bayesian integration. Topological maps are generated on top of the grid- based maps, by partitioning the latter into coherent regions. By combining both paradigms-grid-based and topological-, the approach presented here gains the best of both worlds: accuracy/consistency and efficiency. The paper gives results for autonomously operating a mobile robot equipped with sonar sensors in populated multi-room environments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA307732
Entities
People
- Arno Buecken
- Sebastian Thrun
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University