Ground Plan Based Exploration with a Mobile Indoor Robot

Abstract:
In order to navigate efficiently in its working space a mobile robot has to use some kind of map. To be completely autonomous the robot has to generate such a representation automatically by exploring all reachable area of the a priori unknown environment. Thus an exploration strategy for generating a complete and accurate map within minimal time is a key feature. This paper presents an integrated mapping and exploration approach that uses a 3D reconstruction technique for extracting a ground plan of the environment and for detecting interesting places (NBVs) that trigger the exploration process.