Autonomous Exploration: An Integrated Systems Approach
Mobile robotic systems offer an ideal platform for testing and implementing many of the concepts developed in more abstract artificial intelligence. Robotic systems embody a complex interaction of computation, perception and actuation that depend upon such familiar tasks as recognition and reaction. In order for robots to perform real-world tasks such as navigation, localization and exploration, th e subsystems of motion, sensing and computation must be merged into a single, realizable unit that uses the differen t techniques together. Our group is investigating problems in the domain of computational perception, in the context of mobile robotic s. In particular, we are concerned with environment exploration, and map construction. We are using the AAAI 1997 Mobile Robot competition as an opportunity to test a number of implementations of systems in navigation, spatial reasoning and perception.