Exploration Strategies based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making for an Autonomous Mobile Robot

Abstract

In robotic mapping, a mobile robot builds a spatial representation of the environment by means of a sequence of sensing actions. Exploration strategies determine the locations where an autonomous robot takes such observations. These locations are usually selected by evaluating a number of candidate locations according to different criteria. In this paper we propose a technique to combine criteria based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making, in order to account for their mutual dependence. Our approach is independent of the nature and the number of the criteria considered. Experimental results show that our approach can be used to derive effective exploration strategies.