Application of Autonomous Mapping Algorithm on a Desktop Robot System

This study investigates a desktop robot system which is designed with adopting the embedded technology. The size of the robot is less than 200 cm³. The system collects images by a global camera, and navigates the robot with wireless communication components. The research focusing on autonomous mapping has been carried out on the desktop robot system. The autonomous mapping algorithm in this paper is based on GSOM (growing self-organizing map) algorithm. By continuously increasing new neurons in the growth of network scale, the GSOM mapping algorithm applies a small number of neurons to generate a topological map describing the environmental characteristics. Through testing GSOM mapping algorithm on the robot system, the experimental results show that the GSOM-based mapping method is feasible; and the robot system shows similar biological behaviors of autonomous intelligence.