Related papers: Path Planning and Navigation Inside Off-World Lava…
Subterranean environments with lots of obstacles, including narrow passages, large voids, rock falls and absence of illumination were always challenging for control, navigation, and perception of mobile robots. The limited availability and…
This paper presents a novel strategy for autonomous teamed exploration of subterranean environments using legged and aerial robots. Tailored to the fact that subterranean settings, such as cave networks and underground mines, often involve…
Navigation underwater traditionally is done by keeping a safe distance from obstacles, resulting in "fly-overs" of the area of interest. Movement of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) through a cluttered space, such as a shipwreck or a…
Enabling autonomous robots to safely and efficiently navigate, explore, and map underwater caves is of significant importance to water resource management, hydrogeology, archaeology, and marine robotics. In this work, we demonstrate the…
A flexible topological representation consisting of a two-layer graph structure built on-board an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) by continuously filling the free space of an occupancy map with intersecting spheres is proposed in this…
Autonomous robots operating in natural karstic caves face perception and navigation challenges that are qualitatively distinct from those encountered in mines or tunnels: irregular geometry, reflective wet surfaces, near-zero ambient light,…
We present map-making methodologies and preliminary spectral data cubes for SPHEREx, a NASA Explorer mission that launched in March 2025 and has been performing an all-sky near-infrared spectral survey. The SPHEREx instrument observes from…
It is challenging for the mobile robot to achieve autonomous and mapless navigation in the unknown environment with uneven terrain. In this study, we present a layered and systematic pipeline. At the local level, we maintain a tree…
Most mobile robots for indoor use rely on 2D laser scanners for localization, mapping and navigation. These sensors, however, cannot detect transparent surfaces or measure the full occupancy of complex objects such as tables. Deep Neural…
This paper presents a provably correct method for robot navigation in 2D environments cluttered with familiar but unexpected non-convex, star-shaped obstacles as well as completely unknown, convex obstacles. We presuppose a limited range…
Safe autonomous navigation in a priori unknown environments is an essential skill for mobile robots to reliably and adaptively perform diverse tasks (e.g., delivery, inspection, and interaction) in unstructured cluttered environments.…
Although ground robotic autonomy has gained widespread usage in structured and controlled environments, autonomy in unknown and off-road terrain remains a difficult problem. Extreme, off-road, and unstructured environments such as…
This paper develops a communication-efficient distributed mapping approach for rapid exploration of a cave by a multi-robot team. Subsurface planetary exploration is an unsolved problem challenged by communication, power, and compute…
A major challenge with off-road autonomous navigation is the lack of maps or road markings that can be used to plan a path for autonomous robots. Classical path planning methods mostly assume a perfectly known environment without accounting…
Fast and accurate path planning is important for ground robots to achieve safe and efficient autonomous navigation in unstructured outdoor environments. However, most existing methods exploiting either 2D or 2.5D maps struggle to balance…
ReachBot is a robot concept for the planetary exploration of caves and lava tubes, which are often inaccessible with traditional robot locomotion methods. It uses extendable booms as appendages, with grippers mounted at the end, to grasp…
The ability to traverse an unknown environment is crucial for autonomous robot operations. However, due to the limited sensing capabilities and system constraints, approaching this problem with a single robot agent can be slow, costly, and…
Traditionally, there have been few options for navigational aids for the blind and visually impaired (BVI) in large indoor spaces. Some recent indoor navigation systems allow users equipped with smartphones to interact with low cost…
Perceiving the surrounding environment is crucial for autonomous mobile robots. An elevation map provides a memory-efficient and simple yet powerful geometric representation for ground robots. The robots can use this information for…
It is a challenging task for ground robots to autonomously navigate in harsh environments due to the presence of non-trivial obstacles and uneven terrain. This requires trajectory planning that balances safety and efficiency. The primary…