PRIORITIZED EXPLORATION STRATEGY BASED ON INVASION PERCOLATION GUIDANCE

摘要

The major aim in search and rescue using mobile robots is to reach trapped survivors and to support rescue operations through the disaster environments. Our motivation is based on the fact that a search and rescue (SAR) robot can navigate within and penetrate a disaster area only if the area in question possesses connected voids Traversability or penetrability of a disaster area is a primary factor that guides the navigation of a search and rescue (SAR) robot, since it is highly desirable that the robot, without hitting a dead end or getting stuck, keeps its mobility for its primary task of reconnaissance and mapping when searching the highly unstructured environment We propose two novel guided prioritized exploration system: 1) percolation guided methodology where a percolator estimates the existence of connected voids in the upcoming yet unexplored region ahead of the robot so as to increase the efficiency of reconnaissance operation by the superior ability of the percolation guidance in speedy coverage of the area; 2) the hybrid exploration methodology that makes the percolation guided exploration collaborate with entropy based SLAM under a switching control dependent on either priority given to position accuracy or to map accuracy This second methodology has proven to combine the superiority of both methods so that the active SLAM becomes speedy, with high coverage rate of the area as well as accurate in localization.