Autonomous Teamed Exploration of Subterranean Environments using Legged and Aerial Robots
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2022
Publication Type
Conference Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
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.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
Editor
Book title
2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Journal / series
Volume
Pages / Article No.
3306 - 3313
Publisher
IEEE
Event
39th IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2022)
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
robotics
Organisational unit
09570 - Hutter, Marco / Hutter, Marco