A Stochastic Map Building Method for Mobile Robot using 2-D Laser Range Finder

  • Authors:

  • Young D. Kwon;Jin S. Lee

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, San-31, Nam-Gu, Ji-Gok Dong, Pohang, 790-784, South Korea. ydkwon@tau.postech.ac.kr;Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, San-31, Nam-Gu, Ji-Gok Dong, Pohang, 790-784, South Korea. jsoo@postech.ac.kr

  • Venue:
  • Autonomous Robots
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

This paper presents a stochastic map building methodfor mobile robot using a 2-D laser range finder. Unlike other methods that are based on a set of geometric primitives,the presented method builds a map with a set of obstacle regions.In building a map of the environment, the presented algorithmrepresents the obstacles with a number of stochastic obstacle regions, each of which is characterized by its own stochastic parameters such as mean and covariance.Whereas the geometric primitives based map sometimes does notfit well to sensor data, the presented method reliably represents various types of obstacles including thoseof irregular walls and sets of tiny objects. Their shapes and features are easily extracted from thestochastic parameters of their obstacle regions, and are used to develop reliable navigation and obstacle avoidance algorithms. The algorithm updates the world map in real time bydetecting the changes of each obstacle region. Consequently, it is adequate for modeling thequasi-static environment, which includes occasionalchanges in positions of the obstacles rather than constant dynamic moves of the obstacles.The presented map building method has successfully beenimplemented and tested on the ARES-II mobile robot system equipped with a LADAR2D-laser range finder.