Charles E. Thorpe

Mobile robots are playing an increasingly important role in our world. Remotely operated vehicles are in everyday use for hazardous tasks such as charting and cleaning up hazardous waste spills, construction work of tunnels and high rise buildings, and underwater inspection of oil drilling platforms in the ocean. A whole host of further applications, however, beckons robots capable of autonomous operation without or with very little intervention of human operators. Such robots of the future will explore distant planets, map the ocean floor, study the flow of pollutants and carbon dioxide through our atmosphere and oceans, work in underground mines, and perform other jobs we cannot even imagine; perhaps even drive our cars and walk our dogs. The biggest technical obstacles to building mobile robots are vision and navigation-enabling a robot to see the world around it, to plan and follow a safe path through its environment, and to execute its tasks. At the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, we are studying those problems both in isolation and by building complete systems. Since 1980, we have developed a series of small indoor mobile robots, some experimental, and others for practical applicationr Our outdoor autonomous mobile robot research started in 1984, navigating through the campus sidewalk network using a small outdoor vehicle called the Terregator. In 1985, with the advent of DARPA's Autonomous Land Vehicle Project, we constructed a computer controlled van with onboard sensors and researchers. In the fall of 1987, we began the development of a six-legged Planetary Rover.

The Carnegie Mellon Navlab

Vision and Navigation

Martial H. Hebert

Anthony Stentz

Intelligent Unmanned Ground Vehicles describes the technology developed and the results obtained by the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute in the course of the DARPA Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) project. The goal of this work was to equip off-road vehicles with computer-controlled, unmanned driving capabilities. The book describes contributions in the area of mobility for UGVs including: tools for assembling complex autonomous mobility systems; on-road and off-road navigation; sensing techniques; and route planning algorithms. In addition to basic mobility technology, the book covers a number of integrated systems demonstrated in the field in realistic scenarios. The approaches presented in this book can be applied to a wide range of mobile robotics applications, from automated passenger cars to planetary exploration, and construction and agricultural machines. Intelligent Unmanned Ground Vehicles shows the progress that was achieved during this program, from brittle specially-built robots operating under highly constrained conditions, to groups of modified commercial vehicles operating in tough environments. One measure of progress is how much of this technology is being used in other applications. For example, much of the work in road-following, architectures and obstacle detection has been the basis for the Automated Highway Systems (AHS) prototypes currently under development. AHS will lead to commercial prototypes within a few years. The cross-country technology is also being used in the development of planetary rovers with a projected launch date within a few years. The architectural tools built under this program have been used in numerous applications, from an automated harvester to an autonomous excavator. The results reported in this work provide tools for further research development leading to practical, reliable and economical mobile robots.

Autonomous Navigation Research at Carnegie Mellon

Intelligent Unmanned Ground Vehicles

F. C. A. Groen

Shigeo Hirose

A collection of papers dealing with complete systems of intelligent robots, focusing on autonomy. The contributions cover intelligent perception, intelligent planning and control, and integrated systems.

Charles E. Thorpe

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