Position Estimation and Autonomous Travel by Mobile Robots in Natural Terrain

Abstract

simplistic language, these two meanings correspond to answers to the questions “Where am I?’ and “How do I get there?’ Although the robotics community has devoted significant effort to unattended air and water vehicles, in this chapter we restrict attention to ground robots. One reason for this restriction is that the majority of research and development efforts have concentrated on land vehicles, so we have learned more about ground-travelling robots than about flying, gliding, swimming, or floating robots. Another reason for the restriction is that, in general, the density of obstacle fields is greater on the ground than in either air or water, and