Autonomous coverage operations in semi-structured outdoor environments

This paper presents a comprehensive navigation system capable of extended coverage operations in semi-structured environments. By semi-structured, we mean pre-mapped terrain that although locally smooth has potentially large changes in elevation and that is generally free of obstacles. The system has three key capabilities: it is able to track specified paths with high accuracy, detect small obstacles reliably, and plan coverage patterns to completely cover a specified area. These technologies have been combined and implemented on a mobile robot, which has accumulated over 90km of autonomous operation to date. Here we report on the components, the architecture, and experimental results.

Authors

• Parag H. Batavia
• Stephan Roth
• Sanjiv Singh

Keywords

• Radar tracking
• Laser radar
• Robustness
• Robots
• Navigation
• Costs
• Radar detection
• Infrared detectors
• System testing
• Spraying
• Autonomous Operation
• Large Changes
• Mobile Robot
• Coverage Patterns
• False Positive
• False Negative
• Laser Scanning
• Time Window
• Local System
• Kalman Filter
• Tracking Error
• Tracking Performance
• Mobile Platform
• Vehicle Position
• Obstacle Avoidance
• Flat Terrain
• Software Architecture
• Laser Ranging
• Hardware Architecture
• Straight Section
• Path Tracking
• Gradient Threshold
• Nearest Neighbor Approach
• Single CPU
• Free Space
• Update Time
• Coordinate Frame
• Sports Field
• Extended Duration
• Point Scanning