Paper Info
Title
Towards Autonomous Topological Place Detection Using The Extended Voronoi Graph
Abstract
Autonomous place detection has long been a major hurdle to topological map-building techniques. Theoretical work on topological mapping has assumed that places can be reliably detected by a robot, resulting in deterministic actions. Whether or not deterministic place detection is always achievable is controversial; however, even topological mapping algorithms that assume non-determinism benefit from highly reliable place detection. Unfortunately, topological map-building implementations often have handcoded place detection algorithms that are brittle and domain dependent.This paper presents an algorithm for reliable autonomous place detection that is sensor and domain independent. A preliminary implementation of this algorithm for an indoor robot has demonstrated reliable place detection in real-world environments, with no a priori environmental knowledge. The implementation uses a local, scrolling 2D occupancy grid and a real-time calculated Voronoi graph to find the skeleton of the free space in the local surround. In order to utilize the place detection algorithm in non-corridor environments, we also introduce the extended Voronoi graph (E VG), which seamlessly transitions from a skeleton of a midline in corridors to a skeleton that follows walls in rooms larger than the local scrolling map.
Year
DOI
Venue
2005
10.1109/ROBOT.2005.1570793
2005 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION (ICRA), VOLS 1-4
Keywords
Field
DocType
place detection, topological navigation, Voronoi graph, corridor following, coastal navigation
Topology,A priori and a posteriori,Voronoi graph,Implementation,Free space,Scrolling,Topological mapping,Engineering,Robot,Occupancy grid mapping
Conference
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1050-4729
75
3.81
References 
Authors
13
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Patrick Beeson117712.66
Nicholas K. Jong227215.87
Benjamin Kuipers34111875.19