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FIG-OP: Exploring Large-Scale Unknown Environments on a Fixed Time Budget
- Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- We present a method for autonomous exploration of large-scale unknown environments under mission time constraints. We start by proposing the Frontloaded Information Gain Orienteering Problem (FIG-OP) -- a generalization of the traditional orienteering problem where the assumption of a reliable environmental model no longer holds. The FIG-OP addresses model uncertainty by frontloading expected information gain through the addition of a greedy incentive, effectively expediting the moment in which new area is uncovered. In order to reason across multi-kilometre environments, we solve FIG-OP over an information-efficient world representation, constructed through the aggregation of information from a topological and metric map. Our method was extensively tested and field-hardened across various complex environments, ranging from subway systems to mines. In comparative simulations, we observe that the FIG-OP solution exhibits improved coverage efficiency over solutions generated by greedy and traditional orienteering-based approaches (i.e. severe and minimal model uncertainty assumptions, respectively).<br />Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, 1 table
- Subjects :
- Computer Science - Robotics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.2203.06316
- Document Type :
- Working Paper