Towards Autonomous Navigation with Unmanned Ground Vehicles Using LiDAR

摘要

In this work an automatic exploration of the Valles Marineris canyon system by a swarm of unmanned robots is considered. Therefore a single-layer LiDAR mounted on a rotating platform is used for the reconstruction of the environment and as main navigation system. A path planning algorithm will be introduced which is able to calculate a desired path for each robot individually. This path can be optimized, as for example, for the shortest route, for the greatest passing distance to obstacles or for the lowest energy consumption which is important especially for an extraterrestrial opertation. With the stable navigation solution and the proposed path planning algorithm a basis system has been developed for the complete autonomous operation of UGVs. A graphical user interface (GUI) for the ground control station makes it possible for the user to setup a swarm of robots, define moving patterns and set commands. Results will be shown and evaluated originating from experiments with the proposed SLAM and navigation algorithms in a Mars-like environment.