TMBC: Topological map based coverage path planner for active exploration of an unknown environment

Qihang Wang, Xiaopeng Chen*, Zakir Ullah, Shengquan Tang, Mingming Yu, Peng Xu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The ability to plan online paths, that passes through points of interest for coverage of an unknown environment is essential to robot autonomy. Existing state of the art coverage path planning techniques for active exploration (Frontier and Next-Best-View) are occupancy grid maps based, which do not scale well in large area environments, suffer from long term drift and are not robust at large values of sensor range noise, not address robot navigation safety. We proposed a Coverage Path Planning (CPP) algorithm, which is based on a coordinate system based topological map of the admissible locations of the environment. This algorithm scales well because of the sparse representation of large area environments, it is robust even at large value of sensor noise. This CPP is model free, computationally efficient and consider the robot safety by only considering the admissible locations for navigation. Viewpoints within the unexplored regions of robot workspace are chosen for traversal to cover the environment. The proposed procedure is experimentally verified in a 15 different 3D-gazebo world models using a 2-wheeled differential mobile robot with a Lidar sensor, using ROS framework for implementation. Simulation results shows the effectiveness of this algorithm for the real-world applications.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2022
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1623-1628
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781665481090
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Event2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2022 - Jinghong, China
Duration: 5 Dec 20229 Dec 2022

Publication series

Name2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2022

Conference

Conference2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2022
Country/TerritoryChina
CityJinghong
Period5/12/229/12/22

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'TMBC: Topological map based coverage path planner for active exploration of an unknown environment'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this