SLAM for robotic assistance to fire-fighting services

In the event of an emergency, due to a fire or other crisis, a necessary but time consuming pre-requisite, that could delay the real rescue operation, is to establish whether the ground can be entered safely by human emergency workers. The objective of the VIEW-FINDER project is to develop robots which have the primary task of gathering data. The robots are equipped with sensors that detect the presence of chemicals and, in parallel, image data is collected and forwarded to an advanced base station. One of the problems tackled in this project is the robot navigation. The used robot for the outdoor scenario is equipped with a set of sensors: camera, GPS, inertial navigation system (INS), wheel encoders, and ultrasounds sensors. The robot uses a Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) approach to combine data from different sensors for an accurate positioning. The paper gives an overview on the proposed algorithm.