Robot Navigation In Indoor Environments Research Articles

A SLAM-Based Localization and Navigation System for Social Robots: The Pepper Robot Case

Robot navigation in indoor environments has become an essential task for several applications, including situations in which a mobile robot needs to travel independently to a certain location safely and using the shortest path possible. However, indoor robot navigation faces challenges, such as obstacles and a dynamic environment. This paper addresses the problem of social robot navigation in dynamic indoor environments, through developing an efficient SLAM-based localization and navigation system for service robots using the Pepper robot platform. In addition, this paper discusses the issue of developing this system in a way that allows the robot to navigate freely in complex indoor environments and efficiently interact with humans. The developed Pepper-based navigation system has been validated using the Robot Operating System (ROS), an efficient robot platform architecture, in two different indoor environments. The obtained results show an efficient navigation system with an average localization error of 0.51 m and a user acceptability level of 86.1%.

Detecting and tracking using 2D laser range finders and deep learning

Detecting and tracking people using 2D laser rangefinders (LRFs) is challenging due to the features of the human leg motion, high levels of self-occlusion and the existence of objects which are similar to the human legs. Previous approaches use datasets that are manually labelled with support of images of the scenes. We propose a system with a calibrated monocular camera and 2D LRF mounted on a mobile robot in order to generate a dataset of leg patterns through automatic labelling which is valid to achieve a robust and efficient 2D LRF-based people detector and tracker. First, both images and 2D laser data are recorded during the robot navigation in indoor environments. Second, the people detection boxes and keypoints obtained by a deep learning-based object detector are used to locate both people and their legs on the images. The coordinates frame of 2D laser is extrinsically calibrated to the camera coordinates allowing our system to automatically label the leg instances. The automatically labelled dataset is then used to achieve a leg detector by machine learning techniques. To validate the proposal, the leg detector is used to develop a Kalman filter-based people detection and tracking algorithm which is experimentally assessed. The experimentation shows that the proposed system overcomes the Angus Leigh’s detector and tracker which is considered the state of the art on 2D LRF-based people detector and tracker.

A CNN-Based System for Mobile Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments via Visual Localization with a Small Dataset

Deep learning has made great advances in the field of image processing, which allows automotive devices to be more widely used in humans’ daily lives than ever before. Nowadays, the mobile robot navigation system is among the hottest topics that researchers are trying to develop by adopting deep learning methods. In this paper, we present a system that allows the mobile robot to localize and navigate autonomously in the accessible areas of an indoor environment. The proposed system exploits the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model’s advantage to extract data feature maps for image classification and visual localization, which attempts to precisely determine the location region of the mobile robot focusing on the topological maps of the real environment. The system attempts to precisely determine the location region of the mobile robot by integrating the CNN model and topological map of the robot workspace. A dataset with small numbers of images is acquired from the MYNT EYE camera. Furthermore, we introduce a new loss function to tackle the bounded generalization capability of the CNN model in small datasets. The proposed loss function not only considers the probability of the input data when it is allocated to its true class but also considers the probability of allocating the input data to other classes rather than its actual class. We investigate the capability of the proposed system by evaluating the empirical studies based on provided datasets. The results illustrate that the proposed system outperforms other state-of-the-art techniques in terms of accuracy and generalization capability.

An EKF-based multiple data fusion for mobile robot indoor localization

Purpose Indoor localization is a key tool for robot navigation in indoor environments. Traditionally, robot navigation depends on one sensor to perform autonomous localization. This paper aims to enhance the navigation performance of mobile robots, a multiple data fusion (MDF) method is proposed for indoor environments. Design/methodology/approach Here, multiple sensor data i.e. collected information of inertial measurement unit, odometer and laser radar, are used. Then, an extended Kalman filter (EKF) is used to incorporate these multiple data and the mobile robot can perform autonomous localization according to the proposed EKF-based MDF method in complex indoor environments. Findings The proposed method has experimentally been verified in the different indoor environments, i.e. office, passageway and exhibition hall. Experimental results show that the EKF-based MDF method can achieve the best localization performance and robustness in the process of navigation. Originality/value Indoor localization precision is mostly related to the collected data from multiple sensors. The proposed method can incorporate these collected data reasonably and can guide the mobile robot to perform autonomous navigation (AN) in indoor environments. Therefore, the output of this paper would be used for AN in complex and unknown indoor environments.

Transient Virtual Obstacles for Safe Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments

Transient Virtual Obstacles for Safe Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments

Experience Learning From Basic Patterns for Efficient Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments

In this paper we propose a machine learning technique for real-time robot path planning for an autonomous robot in a planar environment with obstacles where the robot possess no a priori map of its environment. Our main insight in this paper is that a robot’s path planning times can be significantly reduced if it can refer to previous maneuvers it used to avoid obstacles during earlier missions, and adapt that information to avoid obstacles during its current navigation. We propose an online path planning algorithm called LearnerRRT that utilizes a pattern matching technique called Sample Consensus Initial Alignment (SAC-IA) in combination with an experience-based learning technique to adapt obstacle boundary patterns encountered in previous environments to the current scenario followed by corresponding adaptations in the obstacle-avoidance paths. Our proposed algorithm LearnerRRT works as a learning-based reactive path planning technique which enables robots to improve their overall path planning performance by locally improving maneuvers around commonly encountered obstacle patterns by accessing previously accumulated environmental information. We have conducted several experiments in simulations and hardware to verify the performance of the LearnerRRT algorithm and compared it with a state-of-the-art sampling-based planner. LearnerRRT on average takes approximately 10% of the planning time and 14% of the total time taken by the sampling-based planner to solve the same navigation task based on simulation results and takes only 33% of the planning time, 46% of total time and 95% of total distance compared to the sampling-based planner based on our hardware results.

Multi-sensor three-dimensional Monte Carlo localization for long-term aerial robot navigation

This article presents an enhanced version of the Monte Carlo localization algorithm, commonly used for robot navigation in indoor environments, which is suitable for aerial robots moving in a three-dimentional environment and makes use of a combination of measurements from an Red,Green,Blue-Depth (RGB-D) sensor, distances to several radio-tags placed in the environment, and an inertial measurement unit. The approach is demonstrated with an unmanned aerial vehicle flying for 10 min indoors and validated with a very precise motion tracking system. The approach has been implemented using the robot operating system framework and works smoothly on a regular i7 computer, leaving plenty of computational capacity for other navigation tasks such as motion planning or control.

Human-like Artificial Intelligent Wheelchair Robot Navigated by Multi-Sensor Models in Indoor Environments and Error Analysis

Intelligent mobile robot navigation in indoor environments is still a challenge. In this paper, we propose a method in which the wheelchair robot imitates human like navigation by interacting with the surrounding environments. Two types of sensor data are used to train neural networks, which are later used to control the robot to reach the goal location in different indoor environments. The robot navigates from the start to the goal location in the environments with obstacles. In first model, we used the Laser Range Finder (LRF) sensor data as input of the neural network. In the second model in addition to the LRF data, the processed camera sensor data are also utilized. We compare the performance of two neural networks models by analyzing the error between the human and neural network based real robot navigations. The experimental results show that our proposed models are efficient for mobile robot navigations. In addition, errors are analyzed in this paper.

HCTNav: A Path Planning Algorithm for Low-Cost Autonomous Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments

Low-cost robots are characterized by low computational resources and limited energy supply. Path planning algorithms aim to find the optimal path between two points so the robot consumes as little energy as possible. However, these algorithms were not developed considering computational limitations (i.e., processing and memory capacity). This paper presents the HCTNav path-planning algorithm (HCTLab research group’s navigation algorithm). This algorithm was designed to be run in low-cost robots for indoor navigation. The results of the comparison between HCTNav and the Dijkstra’s algorithms show that HCTNav’s memory peak is nine times lower than Dijkstra’s in maps with more than 150,000 cells.

Fast Vertical Line Correspondence Between Images for Mobile Robot Localization

Abstract The localization of a mobile robot can be estimated by using a single camera attached to it, and by previously knowing the position of a few visual landmarks. This approach is based on the tracking of features over image sequences acquired during robot navigation in indoor environments which, typically, have many vertical lines. In this article, we propose a new and fast method that extracts projections of vertical lines and matches them between consecutive frames. This method is based on a new metric, which considers color distributions in the neighborhoods of the line projections, and on the use of search windows defined by robot displacements. In this way, we obtain an effective and efficient matching process, with empirical evidence that showed promising results.

Behavior-based neuro-fuzzy controller for mobile robot navigation

This paper discusses a neuro-fuzzy controller for sensor-based mobile robot navigation in indoor environments. The control system consists of a hierarchy of robot behaviors.

Simultaneous localization and map building for mobile robot navigation

Inexpensive ultrasonic sensors, incremental encoders, and grid-based probabilistic modeling are used for improved robot navigation in indoor environments. For model-building, range data from ultrasonic sensors are constantly sampled and a map is built and updated immediately while the robot is travelling through the workspace. The local world model is based on the concept of an occupancy grid. The world model extracted from the range data is based on the geometric primitive of line segments. For the extraction of these features, methods such as the Hough transform and clustering are utilized. The perceived local world model along with dead-reckoning and ultrasonic sensor data are combined using an extended Kalman filter in a localization scheme to estimate the current position and orientation of the mobile robot, which is subsequently fed to the map-building algorithm. Implementation issues and experimental results with the Nomad 150 mobile robot in a real-world indoor environment (office space) are presented.

Mobile Robot Navigation in Indoor Environments Using Highways and Off-Roads

In this paper a hierarchical world model is derived that represents a building in terms of storeys, rooms, a set of places defined in each room, and connectors among these. Two types of tracks are defined, black tape lines laid out on the floor (highways), and virtual paths to be followed using dead reckoning (off-roads). A hierarchical path planning strategy is developed having a search time efficiency depending on the building layout.