Module Programmer's Guide to Local Map Builder for ALVan

Abstract

Abstract : This document describes the local map blackboard component of a mobile robot system, the Autonomous Land Vehicle (ALV), under construction at CMU. This system will utilize diverse sensors including cameras, sonar, and range finders to navigate autonomously on roads; it is composed of several processes performing these tasks and communicating via a Local Map Builder (LMB) process, which is the subject of this document. This document deals with the local map level, which is responsible for maintaining a description of the environment around the vehicle. It receives data from the sensor interpretation processes, which is in map coordinates but has no semantic labels. The data is passed to KS processes and is eventually used by cognition and control processes. The components of the local map level are the local map builder, that orchestrates the processing, a set of knowledge sources that do the work, and a blackboard that stores the data. This document describes the LMB, the Blackboard, and the interface to the LMB used by KS, sensor, and cognition modules. It provides detailed specifications for programmers implementing these types of modules.