Gard – An Intelligent System for Distributed Exploration of Landmine Fields Simulated by a Team of Khepera Robots

摘要

It is absolutely clear that state-of-the-art robots cannot undertake the whole procedure of terrorist bombs neutralization, unexploded ordnances clean up and minefield demining in many environmental situations, such as urban areas, but the main force toward building of a robotic system in these dangerous tasks is to reduce the human presence. The study of robots for demining applications is indeed a scientifically challenging problem that offers wide possibilities of expanding the actual knowledge on several areas of robotics, ranging from localization devices to visual guidance systems, and from navigation on rough terrain to multi-agent co-operation. The GPS and SLAM methods are the most efficient tools for a robot localization and mapping. Their extension for a group of mobile robots is of an exceptional importance for the successful creation of the “landmines map”. In this paper a co-operative localization algorithm using three mobile robots equipped with localization capabilities for detecting each other has been simulated and tested. Further, navigation algorithms for a colony of mobile robots are proposed. Results demonstrate the localization algorithm applicability, where with a low precision and restricted range, the odometry errors, which normally present problems for mapping, are severely reduced. The simulations show that under certain conditions, successful localization is only possible if the team of multiple robots collaborate during localization by communication and data transferring.