Cooperative Exploration by Multi-robots without Global Localization

• Main Authors: Shi Chao-xia, Hong Bing-rong, Wang Yan-qing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2008-11-01
• Series: International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
• Subjects: Cooperative exploration; Topological map; map merging; Scale-invariant features
• Online Access: http://www.intechopen.com/articles/show/title/cooperative_exploration_by_multi-robots_without_global_localization

Efficient exploration of unknown environments is a fundamental problem in mobile robotics. We propose a novel topological map whose nodes are represented with the range finder's free beams together with the visual scale-invariant features. The topological map enables teams of robots to efficiently explore environments from different, unknown locations without knowing their initial poses, relative poses and global poses in a certain world reference frame. The experiments of map merging and coordinated exploration demonstrate the proposed map is not only easy for merging, but also convenient for robust and efficient explorations in unknown environments..