Treatment of systematic errors in the processing of wide-angle sonar sensor data for robotic navigation

A methodology has been developed for the treatment of systematic errors that arise in the processing of sparse sensor data. A detailed application of this methodology to the construction, from wide-angle sonar sensor data, of navigation maps for use in autonomous robotic navigation is presented. In the methodology, a four-valued labeling scheme and a simple logic for label combination are introduced. The four labels Conflict, Occupied, Empty, and Unknown are used to mark the cells of the navigation maps. The logic allows for the rapid updating of these maps as new information is acquired. Systematic errors are treated by relabeling conflicting pixel assignments. Most of the new labels are obtained from analyses of the characteristic patterns of conflict that arise during the information processing. The remaining labels are determined by imposing an elementary consistent-labeling condition