Simultaneous exploration and 3D mapping of unstructured environments

Author

Gerbaud, Thomas ; Polotski, Vladimir ; Cohen, Paul

Author_Institution

Perception & Robotics Laboratory, Ecole Polytech. de Montreal, Que., Canada

Volume

6

fYear

2004

fDate

10-13 Oct. 2004

Firstpage

5333

Abstract

Mobile vehicles equipped with range sensing capabilities are well suited for exploring and mapping unknown environments. This paper describes such an exploration platform, based upon an all-terrain skid-steer vehicle and a forward-looking laser rangefinder. Planar range profiles, acquired by the ground-pointing rangefinder along the vehicle path, are used for reactive autonomous navigation and simultaneous 3D mapping. Successive profiles are corrected using inertial data provided by an onboard gyro-clino device and combined to produce a 3D model of the environment, using Delaunay triangulation. Various autonomous navigation modes are available during exploration. The platform has been extensively tested in indoor and outdoor environments.

Keywords

laser ranging; mobile robots; path planning; steering systems; terrain mapping; 3D mapping; Delaunay triangulation; all-terrain skid-steer vehicle; forward-looking laser rangefinder; mobile vehicle; reactive autonomous navigation; Land vehicles; Laser modes; Mobile robots; Navigation; Quantum cascade lasers; Remotely operated vehicles; Robot sensing systems; Simultaneous localization and mapping; Terrain mapping; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 2004 IEEE International Conference on

ISSN

1062-922X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8566-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSMC.2004.1401041

Filename

1401041