Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An Architecture for Distributed Environment Sensing with Application to Robotic Cliff Exploration

  • Published:
Autonomous Robots Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Future planetary exploration missions will use cooperative robots to explore and sample rough terrain. To succeed robots will need to cooperatively acquire and share data. Here a cooperative multi-agent sensing architecture is presented and applied to the mapping of a cliff surface. This algorithm efficiently repositions the systems' sensing agents using an information theoretic approach and fuses sensory information using physical models to yield a geometrically consistent environment map. This map is then distributed among the agents using an information based relevant data reduction scheme. Experimental results for cliff face mapping using the JPL Sample Return Rover (SRR) are presented. The method is shown to significantly improve mapping efficiency over conventional methods.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anousaki, G.C. and Kyriakopoulos, K.J. 1999. Simultaneous localization and map building for mobile robot navigation. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 6(3):42-53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Asada, M. 1990. Map building for a mobile robot from sensory data. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 37(6).

  • Baumgartner, E.T., Schenker, P.S., Leger, C., and Huntsberger, T.L. 1998. Sensor-fused navigation and manipulation from a planetary rover. In Proceedings of SPIE Symposium on Sensor Fusion and Decentralized Control in Robotic Systems, Boston, MA, vol. 3523.

  • Burschka, D., Eberst, C., and Robl, C. 1997. Vision based model generation for indoor environments. In Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, vol. 3, pp. 1940-1945.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castellanos, J.A., Martinez, J.M., Neira, J., and Tardos, J.D. 1998. Simultaneous map building and localization for mobile robots: A multisensor fusion approach. In Proceedings of 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Leuven, Belgium, vol. 2, pp. 1244-1249.

    Google Scholar 

  • Choset, H. and Nagatani, K. 2001. Topological simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM): Toward exact localization without explicit localization. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 17(2):125-137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelb, A. 1974. Applied Optimal Estimation. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hager, G.D., Kriegman, D., Teh, E., and Rasmussen, C. 1997. Image-based prediction of landmark features for mobile robot navigation. In Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, vol. 2, pp. 1040-1046.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntsberger, T.L., Rodriguez, G., and Schenker, P.S. 2000. Robotics: Challenges for robotic and human Mars exploration. In Proceedings of ROBOTICS2000, Albuquerque, New Mexico, pp. 299-305.

  • Huntsberger, T.L., Pirjanian, P., and Schenker, P.S. 2001. Robotic outposts as precursors to a manned Mars habitat. In Proceedings of the 2001 Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF-2001), Albuquerque, New Mexico, pp. 46-51.

  • Huntsberger, T.L., Sujan, V.A., Dubowsky, S., and Schenker, P.S. 2003. Integrated system for sensing and traverse of cliff faces. In Proceedings of Aerosense'03: Unmanned Ground Vehicle Technology V. SPIE, Orlando, Florida, vol. 5083.

  • Kruse, E., Gutsche, R., and Wahl, F.M. 1996. Efficient, iterative, sensor based 3-D map building using rating functions in configuration space. In Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Minneapolis, Minnesota, vol. 2, pp. 1067-1072.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuipers, B. and Byun, Y. 1991. A robot exploration and mapping strategy based on semantic hierarchy of spatial representations. Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 8:47-63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leonard, J.J. and Durrant-Whyte, H.F. 1991. Simultaneous map building and localization for an autonomous mobile robot. In IEEE 1991 International Workshop on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Osaka, Japan, vol. 3, pp. 1442-1447.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lumelsky, V., Mukhopadhyay, S., and Sun, K. 1989. Sensor-based terrain acquisition: The "sightseer" strategy. In Proceedings of the 28th Conference on Decision and Control, Tampa, Florida, vol. 2, pp. 1157-1161.

    Google Scholar 

  • Osborn, J.F., Whittaker, W.L., and Coppersmith, S. 1987. Prospects for robotics in hazardous waste management. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on New Frontiers for Hazardous Waste Management, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

  • Park J., Jiang, B., and Neumann, U. 1999. Vision-based pose computation: Robust and accurate augmented reality tracking. In Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Augmented Reality, San Francisco, California, pp. 3-12.

  • Pirjanian, P., Huntsberger, T.L., and Schenker, P.S. 2001. Development of CAMPOUT and its further applications to planetary rover operations: A multirobot control architecture. In Proceedings of SPIE Sensor Fusion and Decentralized Control in Robotic Systems IV, Newton, Massachusetts, vol. 4571, pp. 108-119.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rekleitis, I., Dudek, G., and Milios, E. 2000. Multi-robot collaboration for robust exploration. In Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, San Francisco, California, vol. 4, pp. 3164-3169.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schenker, P.S., Baumgartner, E.T., Lindemann, R.A., Aghazarian, H., Ganino, A.J., Hickey, G.S., Zhu, D.Q., Matthies, L.H., Hoffman, B.H., and Huntsberger, T.L. 1998. New planetary rovers for longrange Mars science and sample return. In Proceedings of SPIE Symposium on Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XVII: Algorithms, Techniques, and Active Vision, Boston, Massachusetts, vol. 3522.

  • Schenker, P.S., Pirjanian, P., Huntsberger, T.L., Trebi-Ollennu, A., Aghazarian, H., Leger, C. JPL, Dubowsky, S. MIT, McKee, G.T., University of Reading (UK). 2001. Robotic intelligence for space: Planetary surface exploration, task-driven robotic adaptation, and multirobot cooperation. In Proceedings of SPIE Symposium on Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XX: Algorithms, Techniques, and Active Vision, Newton, Massachusetts, vol. 4572.

  • Shaffer, G. and Stentz, A. 1992. A robotic system for underground coal mining. In Proceedings of 1992 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Nice, France, vol. 1, pp. 633-638.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shannon, C.E. 1948. A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell System Technical Journal, 27:379-423.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simhon, S. and Dudek, G. 1998. Selecting targets for local reference frames. In Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Leuven, Belgium, vol. 4, pp. 2840-2845.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, R.C. and Cheeseman, P. 1986. On the representation and estimation of spatial uncertainty. International Journal of Robotics Research, 5(4):56-68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stroupe, A.W., Martin, M., and Balch, T. 2000. Merging gaussian distributions for object localization in multi-robot systems. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, ISER '00, Hawaii.

  • Sujan, V.A. and Dubowsky, S. 2002. Visually built task models for robot teams in unstructured environments. In Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Washington, DC, vol. 2, pp. 1782-1787.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thrun, S., Burgard, W., and Fox, D. 2000. A real-time algorithm for mobile robot mapping with applications to multi-robot and 3D mapping. In Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, San Francisco, California, vol. 1, pp. 321-328.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomatis, N., Nourbakhsh, I., and Siegwar, R. 2001. Simultaneous localization and map building: A global topological model with local metric maps. In Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Maui, Hawaii, vol. 1, pp. 421-426.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trebi-Ollennu, A., Das, H., Aghazarian, H., Ganino, A., Pirjanian, P., Huntsberger, T., and Schenker, P. 2002. Mars rover pair cooperatively transporting a long payload. In Proceedings of 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Washington, DC, vol. 4, pp. 3136-3141.

    Google Scholar 

  • Victorino, A.C., Rives, P., and Borrelly, J.-J. 2000. Localization and map building using a sensor-based control strategy. In Proceedings of 2000 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Takamatsu, Japan, vol. 2, pp. 937-942.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamauchi, B., Schultz, A., and Adams, W. 1998. Mobile robot exploration and map-building with continuous localization. In Proceedings of 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Leuven, Belgium, vol. 4, pp. 3715-3720.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yeh, E. and Kriegman, D.J. 1995. Toward selecting and recognizing natural landmarks. In Proceedings of the 1995 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, vol. 1, pp. 47-53.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Vivek A. Sujan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Steven Dubowsky
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Terry Huntsberger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Hrand Aghazarian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Yang Cheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Paul Schenker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sujan, V.A., Dubowsky, S., Huntsberger, T. et al. An Architecture for Distributed Environment Sensing with Application to Robotic Cliff Exploration. Autonomous Robots 16, 287–311 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:AURO.0000025792.60972.f2

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:AURO.0000025792.60972.f2

Search

Navigation