Victor Reijgwart

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Reijgwart

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Victor

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0000-0002-7605-8490

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Publications 1 - 10 of 18

Autonomous navigation for inspection and maintenance ground robotics
Ivarsen, Peter Ørnulf; Keller, Julian; Sramota, Jan; et al. (2024)
Robotics and Automation Solutions for Inspection and Maintenance in Critical Infrastructures
This chapter presents recent research results in the frame of Autonomous Navigation for Inspection and Maintenance Ground Robotics including localization and navigation algorithms, as well as Localization and Mapping of Ground Robots.
Voxgraph: Globally Consistent, Volumetric Mapping Using Signed Distance Function Submaps
Reijgwart, Victor; Millane, Alexander; Oleynikova, Helen; et al. (2020)
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Globally consistent dense maps are a key requirement for long-term robot navigation in complex environments. While previous works have addressed the challenges of dense mapping and global consistency, most require more computational resources than may be available on-board small robots. We propose a framework that creates globally consistent volumetric maps on a CPU and is lightweight enough to run on computationally constrained platforms. Our approach represents the environment as a collection of overlapping signed distance function (SDF) submaps and maintains global consistency by computing an optimal alignment of the submap collection. By exploiting the underlying SDF representation, we generate correspondence-free constraints between submap pairs that are computationally efficient enough to optimize the global problem each time a new submap is added. We deploy the proposed system on a hexacopter micro aerial vehicle (MAV) with an Intel i7-8650 U CPU in two realistic scenarios: mapping a large-scale area using a 3D LiDAR and mapping an industrial space using an RGB-D camera. In the large-scale outdoor experiments, the system optimizes a 120 × 80 m map in less than 4 s and produces absolute trajectory RMSEs of less than 1 m over 400 m trajectories. Our complete system, called voxgraph, is available as open source.
AMZ Driverless: The full autonomous racing system
Kabzan, Juraj; Valls, Miguel I.; Reijgwart, Victor; et al. (2020)
Journal of Field Robotics
This paper presents the algorithms and system architecture of an autonomous racecar. The introduced vehicle is powered by a software stack designed for robustness, reliability, and extensibility. To autonomously race around a previously unknown track, the proposed solution combines state of the art techniques from different fields of robotics. Specifically, perception, estimation, and control are incorporated into one high-performance autonomous racecar. This complex robotic system, developed by AMZ Driverless and ETH Zürich, finished first overall at each competition we attended: Formula Student Germany 2017, Formula Student Italy 2018 and Formula Student Germany 2018. We discuss the findings and learnings from these competitions and present an experimental evaluation of each module of our solution. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC
CERBERUS: Autonomous Legged and Aerial Robotic Exploration in the Tunnel and Urban Circuits of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge
Tranzatto, Marco; Mascarich, Frank; Bernreiter, Lukas; et al. (2022)
Field Robotics
Autonomous exploration of subterranean environments constitutes a major frontier for robotic systems, as underground settings present key challenges that can render robot autonomy hard to achieve. This problem has motivated the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, where teams of robots search for objects of interest in various underground environments. In response, we present the CERBERUS system-of-systems, as a unified strategy for subterranean exploration using legged and flying robots. Our proposed approach relies on ANYmal quadraped as primary robots, exploiting their endurance and ability to traverse challenging terrain. For aerial robots, we use both conventional and collision-tolerant multirotors to explore spaces too narrow or otherwise unreachable by ground systems. Anticipating degraded sensing conditions, we developed a complementary multimodal sensor-fusion approach, utilizing camera, LiDAR, and inertial data for resilient robot pose estimation. Individual robot pose estimates are refined by a centralized multi-robot map-optimization approach to improve the reported location accuracy of detected objects of interest in the DARPA-defined coordinate frame. Furthermore, a unified exploration path-planning policy is presented to facilitate the autonomous operation of both legged and aerial robots in complex underground networks. Finally, to enable communication among team agents and the base station, CERBERUS utilizes a ground rover with a high-gain antenna and an optical fiber connection to the base station and wireless “breadcrumb” nodes deployed by the legged robots. We report results from the CERBERUS system-of-systems deployment at the DARPA Subterranean Challenge’s Tunnel and Urban Circuit events, along with the current limitations and the lessons learned for the benefit of the community.
Leveraging learned monocular depth prediction for pose estimation and mapping on unmanned underwater vehicles
Job, Marco; Botta, David; Reijgwart, Victor; et al. (2025)
Frontiers in Robotics and AI
This paper presents a general framework that integrates visual and acoustic sensor data to enhance localization and mapping in complex, highly dynamic underwater environments, with a particular focus on fish farming. The pipeline enables net-relative pose estimation for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) and depth prediction within net pens solely from visual data by combining deep learning-based monocular depth prediction with sparse depth priors derived from a classical Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)-based method. We further introduce a method to estimate a UUV's global pose by fusing these net-relative estimates with acoustic measurements, and demonstrate how the predicted depth images can be integrated into the wavemap mapping framework to generate detailed 3D maps in real-time. Extensive evaluations on datasets collected in industrial-scale fish farms confirm that the presented framework can be used to accurately estimate a UUV's net-relative and global position in real-time, and provide 3D maps suitable for autonomous navigation and inspection.
A Unified Approach for Autonomous Volumetric Exploration of Large Scale Environments under Severe Odometry Drift
Schmid, Lukas; Reijgwart, Victor; Ott, Lionel; et al. (2021)
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Exploration is a fundamental problem in robot autonomy. A major limitation, however, is that during exploration robots oftentimes have to rely on on-board systems alone for state estimation, accumulating significant drift over time in large environments. Drift can be detrimental to robot safety and exploration performance. In this work, a submap-based, multi-layer approach for both mapping and planning is proposed to enable safe and efficient volumetric exploration of large scale environments despite odometry drift. The central idea of our approach combines local (temporally and spatially) and global mapping to guarantee safety and efficiency. Similarly, our planning approach leverages the presented map to compute global volumetric frontiers in a changing global map and utilizes the nature of exploration dealing with partial information for efficient local and global planning. The presented system is thoroughly evaluated and shown to outperform state of the art methods even under drift-free conditions. Our system, termed GLocal , is made available open source.
maplab 2.0 - A Modular and Multi-Modal Mapping Framework
Cramariuc, Andrei; Bernreiter, Lukas; Tschopp, Florian; et al. (2023)
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Integration of multiple sensor modalities and deep learning into Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) systems are areas of significant interest in current research. Multi modality is a stepping stone towards achieving robustness in challenging environments and interoperability of heterogeneous multi robot systems with varying sensor setups. With maplab 2.0, we provide a versatile open-source platform that facilitates developing, testing, and integrating new modules and features into a fullyfledged SLAM system. Through extensive experiments, we show that maplab 2.0's accuracy is comparable to the state-of-the-art on the HILTI 2021 benchmark. Additionally, we showcase the flexibility of our system with three use cases: i) large-scale (similar to 10 km) multi-robot multi-session (23 missions) mapping, ii) integration of non-visual landmarks, and iii) incorporating a semantic object-based loop closure module into the mapping framework.
Autonomous Teamed Exploration of Subterranean Environments using Legged and Aerial Robots
Kulkarni, Mihir; Dharmadhikari, Mihir; Tranzatto, Marco; et al. (2022)
2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
This paper presents a novel strategy for autonomous teamed exploration of subterranean environments using legged and aerial robots. Tailored to the fact that subterranean settings, such as cave networks and underground mines, often involve complex, large-scale and multi-branched topologies, while wireless communication within them can be particularly challenging, this work is structured around the synergy of an onboard exploration path planner that allows for resilient long-term autonomy, and a multi-robot coordination framework. The onboard path planner is unified across legged and flying robots and enables navigation in environments with steep slopes, and diverse geometries. When a communication link is available, each robot of the team shares submaps to a centralized location where a multi-robot coordination framework identifies global frontiers of the exploration space to inform each system about where it should re-position to best continue its mission. The strategy is verified through a field deployment inside an underground mine in Switzerland using a legged and a flying robot collectively exploring for 45 min, as well as a longer simulation study with three systems.
Team CERBERUS Wins the DARPA Subterranean Challenge: Technical Overview and Lessons Learned
Tranzatto, Marco; Dharmadhikari, Mihir; Bernreiter, Lukas; et al. (2022)
This article presents the CERBERUS robotic system-of-systems, which won the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Final Event in 2021. The Subterranean Challenge was organized by DARPA with the vision to facilitate the novel technologies necessary to reliably explore diverse underground environments despite the grueling challenges they present for robotic autonomy. Due to their geometric complexity, degraded perceptual conditions combined with lack of GPS support, austere navigation conditions, and denied communications, subterranean settings render autonomous operations particularly demanding. In response to this challenge, we developed the CERBERUS system which exploits the synergy of legged and flying robots, coupled with robust control especially for overcoming perilous terrain, multi-modal and multi-robot perception for localization and mapping in conditions of sensor degradation, and resilient autonomy through unified exploration path planning and local motion planning that reflects robot-specific limitations. Based on its ability to explore diverse underground environments and its high-level command and control by a single human supervisor, CERBERUS demonstrated efficient exploration, reliable detection of objects of interest, and accurate mapping. In this article, we report results from both the preliminary runs and the final Prize Round of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, and discuss highlights and challenges faced, alongside lessons learned for the benefit of the community.
Team CERBERUS Wins the DARPA Subterranean Challenge: Technical Overview and Lessons Learned
Tranzatto, Marco; Dharmadhikari, Mihir; Bernreiter, Lukas; et al. (2024)
Field Robotics
This article presents the CERBERUS robotic system-of-systems, which won the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Final Event in 2021. The Subterranean Challenge was organized by DARPA with the vision to facilitate the novel technologies necessary to reliably explore diverse underground environments despite the grueling challenges they present for robotic autonomy. Due to their geometric complexity, degraded perceptual conditions combined with lack of GNSS support, austere navigation conditions, and denied communications, subterranean settings render autonomous operations particularly demanding. In response to this challenge, we developed the CERBERUS system which exploits the synergy of legged and flying robots, coupled with robust control especially for overcoming perilous terrain, multi-modal and multi-robot perception for localization and mapping in conditions of sensor degradation, and resilient autonomy through unified exploration path planning and local motion planning that reflects robot-specific limitations. Based on its ability to explore diverse underground environments and its high-level command and control by a single human supervisor, CERBERUS demonstrated efficient exploration, reliable detection of objects of interest, and accurate mapping. In this article, we report results from both the preliminary runs and the final Prize Round of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, and discuss highlights and challenges faced, alongside lessons learned for the benefit of the community.

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Victor Reijgwart

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