Integrated mobile robotic system for environmental mapping and object localization

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Abstract
Many applications require the ability to navigate a mobile robotic platform through environments containing unknown obstacles. For example, many old nuclear reactors being decommissioned have no plans or models of the details of what is inside them. Sending humans into such unknown and hazardous environments is both costly and dangerous. Therefore, a robot that can go safely into these areas, knowing little or nothing about what it will encounter, is needed. This paper describes a system being developed that can be used either telerobotically, using graphical interfaces, or autonomously, with supervision capabilities through the interfaces. The system starts with little or no knowledge base and adds to it as it moves through the environment. The experiments described utilize a unique mobile robotic testbed including a wheeled robot integrated with ultrasonic range sensors, infrared proximity sensors, and CCD cameras controlled through VME based hardware.

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