Obstacle Detection and Avoidance for Mobile Outdoor Robotics

Abstract

Recent development in unmanned space travel [1], agricultural automation [2], archaeological exploration [3] and evolution of military devices [4] shows that the demand for Unmanned Ground Vehicles is strongly increasing. Still most of the implementations appear more like enhanced remote-controlled cars [5] than autonomously acting and decision-taking, thkus intelligent, robots. As teleoperation is difficult and expensive, costs and operation times shall be minimised by the introduction of autonomous vehicles. The Robotics Lab at Kaiserslautern cooperates with the Unmanned Ground Vehicle Group of the Royal Military Academy (Belgium) in the sector of autonomous outdoor navigation.