This paper suggests a new exploration strategy of an autonomous mobile robot in an unknown environment. Determination of a temporary goal based on a representation of work area named exploration quadtree is proposed. The exploration quadtree provides the information on quality of the regions concerned in a robot’s workspace. Using this quadtree the robot easily finds the next temporary goal that makes exploration more efficient. The quadtree is made up from a sonar probability map that is constructed by sonar range sensing and Bayesian probability theory. We then propose a method that plans a path between the determined temporary goals based on a probability map. The developed methods were implemented on a real mobile robot, AMROYS-II, which was built in our laboratory, and shown to be useful enough in a real environment that can be projected onto a two-dimensional space.

Issue Section:
Technical Briefs
Topics:
Mobile robots, Probability, Robots
1.
Borenstein
 
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2.
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Cho
 
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Certainty Grid Representation for Robot Navigation by a Bayesian Method
,”
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5.
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6.
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7.
Lim, J. H., and Cho, D. W., 1994b, “Real Time Map Construction and Position Estimation for an Autonomous Mobile Robot using Sonar Sensors,” To appear in Int. J. of Computers and Their Applications.
8.
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,
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9.
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10.
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11.
Moravec, H. P., and Cho, D. W., 1989, “A Bayesian Method for Certainty Grids,” AAAI Spring Symposium on Robot Navigation, Stanford, CA, March 1989, pp. 57–60.
12.
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