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Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute

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Abstract

A variety of mobile robot tasks require complete coverage of an initially unknown environment, either as the entire task or as a way to generate a complete map for use during further missions. This is a problem known as sensor-based coverage, in which the robot's sensing is used to plan a path that reaches every point in the environment. A new algorithm, CC/sub R/, is presented here which works for robots with only contact sensing that operate in environments with rectilinear boundaries and obstacles. This algorithm uses a high-level rule-based feedback structure to direct coverage rather than a script in order to facilitate future extensions to a team of independent robots. The outline of a completeness proof of CC/sub R/ is also presented, which shows that it produces coverage of any of a large class of rectilinear environments. Implementation of CC/sub R/ in simulation is discussed, as well as the results of testing in a variety of world geometries and potential extensions to the algorithm.

Notes

Associated Lab(s) / Group(s): Microdynamic Systems Laboratory

Text Reference

Zack Butler, Alfred Rizzi, and Ralph Hollis, "Contact Sensor-based Coverage of Rectilinear Environments," IEEE Int'l Symposium on Intelligent Control, September, 1999, pp. 266 - 271.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Butler_1999_3228,
   author = "Zack Butler and Alfred Rizzi and Ralph Hollis",
   title = "Contact Sensor-based Coverage of Rectilinear Environments",
   booktitle = "IEEE Int'l Symposium on Intelligent Control",
   pages = "266 - 271",
   month = "September",
   year = "1999",
}

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