Mobile robots operating on unstructured terrain must predict which areas of the environment they are able to pass in order to plan feasible paths and to react to unforeseen terrain patterns. We address traversability estimation as a heightmap classification problem: we build a convolutional neural network that, given an image representing the heightmap of a terrain patch, predicts whether the robot will be able to traverse such patch from left to right. The classifier is trained for a specific wheeled robot model (but may implement any other locomotion type such as tracked, legged, snake-like), using simulation data on a variety of procedurally generated training terrains; once trained, the classifier can quickly be applied to patches extracted from unseen large heightmaps, in multiple orientations, thus building oriented traversability maps. We quantitatively validate the approach on real-elevation datasets and implement a path planning approach that employs our traversability estimation.
The first option is to use the robot’s own experience. Then, the robot needs a way to detect whether the area it is passing is traversable or not, using wheel slippage @cite_16 , vibration sensors @cite_0 , or visual odometry to check progress (which is a possible extension for our approach, as we note in ).
@cite_0 @cite_16
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For robotic systems to realise lifelong autonomy they must be able to navigate accurately in changing environments. In this thesis we describe, implement and validate a new approach to the problem of long-term navigation. To begin, we present our stereo visual odometry system which provides highly accurate pose estimation. Our approach combines several techniques found in existing implementations and a recently published image descriptor that simplifies the solution architecture. The performance and versatility of our system is demonstrated through testing on multiple datasets. Equipped with our visual odometry system, we describe a new approach to the problem of lifelong navigation. We learn a model whose complexity varies naturally in accordance with the variation of scene appearance. As the robot repeatedly traverses its workspace, it accumulates distinct visual experiences that, in concert, implicitly represent the scene variation - each experience captures a visual mode. When operating in a previously visited area, we continually try to localise in these previous experiences while simultaneously running the visual odometry. Failure to localise in a sufficient number of prior experiences indicates an insufficient model of the workspace and instigates the laying down of the live image sequence as a new distinct experience. In this way, over time we can capture the typical temporally varying appearance of an environment and the number of experiences required tends to a constant. Although we focus on vision as a primary sensor, the ideas we present here are equally applicable to other sensor modalities. We demonstrate our approach working on a road vehicle operating over a three month period at different times of day, in different weather and lighting conditions. This paper presents a predictive model of sensor readings for mobile robot. The model predicts sensor readings for given time horizon based on current sensor readings and velocities of wheels assumed for this horizon. Similar models for such anticipation have been proposed in the literature. The novelty of the model presented in the paper comes from the fact that its structure takes into account physical phenomena and is not just a black box, for example a neural network. From this point of view it may be regarded as a semi-phenomenological model. The model is developed for the Khepera robot, but after certain modifications, it may be applied for any robot with distance sensors such as infrared or ultrasonic sensors. Keywords—Mobile robot, sensors, prediction, anticipation. I. INTRODUCTION ODELS of mobile robots usually takes into account only their kinematics and dynamics. Then variables describing the state of the mobile robot are: location coordinates, direction (azimuth) and sometimes velocity. In such models usually readings from the distance sensors are not taken into account. Such measurements, describing the distance from obstacles, are utilized only during generation of the control signals (velocities of the wheels). Moreover, only present measurements are used without any anticipation of measurements. Such anticipation may improve the control quality. If, for example, during the so called behavioral control the "avoid obstacles" rule is activated if the sensory reading exceed assumed threshold, then the control signals might be improved based on the anticipation of the sensory readings. In the literature several attempts of anticipation of sensory readings are reported but they are not serve during the control of the robot but for selection of landmarks (3). For example in articles (2) and (5) an artificial feedforward neural network was proposed as a predictor of further measurements of sensors. The proposed predictor was very simple - it contained only one layer and took as inputs only past readings from neighbouring sensors and did not use wheel velocities of the mobile robot. Such simplified model was good enough for the landmark selection based on the difference between the predicted and real readings but for the control purposes a Visual odometry is a popular approach to estimating robot motion using a monocular or stereo camera. This paper proposes a novel visual odometry scheme using a stereo camera for robust estimation of a 6 DOF motion in the dynamic environment. The false results of feature matching and the uncertainty of depth information provided by the camera can generate the outliers which deteriorate the estimation. The outliers are removed by analyzing the magnitude histogram of the motion vector of the corresponding features and the RANSAC algorithm. The features extracted from a dynamic object such as a human also makes the motion estimation inaccurate. To eliminate the effect of a dynamic object, several candidates of dynamic objects are generated by clustering the 3D position of features and each candidate is checked based on the standard deviation of features on whether it is a real dynamic object or not. The accuracy and practicality of the proposed scheme are verified by several experiments and comparisons with both IMU and wheel-based odometry. It is shown that the proposed scheme works well when wheel slip occurs or dynamic objects exist. A mobile robot we have developed is equipped with sensors to measure range to landmarks and can simultaneously localize itself as well as locate the landmarks. This modality is useful in those cases where environmental conditions preclude measurement of bearing (typically done optically) to landmarks. Here we extend the paradigm to consider the case where the landmarks (nodes of a sensor network) are able to measure range to each other. We show how the two capabilities are complimentary in being able to achieve a map of the landmarks and to provide localization for the moving robot. We present recent results with experiments on a robot operating in a randomly arranged network of nodes that can communicate via radio and range to each other using sonar. We find that incorporation of inter-node measurements helps reduce drift in positioning as well as leads to faster convergence of the map of the nodes. We find that addition of a mobile node makes the SLAM feasible in a sparsely connected network of nodes