Mayfly: A small mapping robot for Japanese office environments

Japanese offices are often cramped, cluttered, and allow a mapping robot very little room for maneuvering. Robot navigation research in Japan is hampered by these cramped spaces and a thorough search for robots that could map and maneuver in Japanese offices turned up unsatisfactory results: either the robots were too large, could not carry a relatively heavy payload, or did not have processing power beyond that needed for simple navigation. This paper introduces Mayfly, a small, PC-based robot we developed for indoor robotics research in confined public spaces such as those found in Japanese offices and laboratories. Mayfly provides a new, practical solution for mapping in these environments while carrying a relatively large payload (SICK laser), and considerable onboard processing power.