Map Maker

Introduction

Exploration of an unknown environment is a fundamental problem in the field of autonomous mobile robotics. It deals with the task of examining the environment with sensors while creating a map with its collected data. Conventionally, humans map the environment beforehand in order to use theresult in a vehicle for subsequent navigation.
However, exploration has the potential to remove humans from the loop of generating a map of an unknown environment. This has many applications such as robot deployment in areas where pre-mapping is not possible, space robotics, etc..

Goal

The main goal of this project is to design a robot control software for a Robosoft Kompai robot in the simulated factory environment MRDS with a hybrid deliberative/reactive architecture,allowing the robot to navigate the environment while constructing a map of it.

Run instructons

1. Launch a simulation environment in MRDS
2. cd to the directory where the source files are contained

python3 main_test.py

Results

The exploration area was limited in order to avoid small areas, this is because the resolution of the world was not enough to traverse it without bumping into objects; doubling the resolution resulted in deliberation times in the order of a minute. The chosen resolution lead to a good trade-off.