3d reactive control and frontier-based exploration for unstructured environments

S Ahmad, AB Mills, ER Rush, EW Frew… - 2021 IEEE/RSJ …, 2021 - ieeexplore.ieee.org
2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and …, 2021ieeexplore.ieee.org
The paper proposes a reliable and robust planning solution to the long range robotic
navigation problem in extremely cluttered environments. A two-layer planning architecture is
proposed that leverages both the environment map and the direct depth sensor information
to ensure maximal information gain out of the onboard sensors. A frontier-based pose
sampling technique is used with a fast marching cost-to-go calculation to select a goal pose
and plan a path to maximize robot exploration rate. An artificial potential function approach …
The paper proposes a reliable and robust planning solution to the long range robotic navigation problem in extremely cluttered environments. A two-layer planning architecture is proposed that leverages both the environment map and the direct depth sensor information to ensure maximal information gain out of the onboard sensors. A frontier-based pose sampling technique is used with a fast marching cost-to-go calculation to select a goal pose and plan a path to maximize robot exploration rate. An artificial potential function approach, relying on direct depth measurements, enables the robot to follow the path while simultaneously avoiding small scene obstacles that are not captured in the map due to mapping and localization uncertainties. We demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of the proposed approach through field deployments in a structurally complex warehouse using a micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) with all the sensing and computations performed onboard.
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