Related papers: On the Potential of Smarter Multi-layer Maps

We consider a team of heterogeneous robots which are deployed within a common workspace to gather different types of data. The robots have different roles due to different capabilities: some gather data from the workspace (source robots)…

A fundamental challenge in multi-robot motion planning is achieving sufficient coordination to avoid inter-robot conflicts without incurring the large computational expense of searching the joint configuration space of the robot group. In…

In this paper, we compare different map management techniques for long-term visual navigation in changing environments. In this scenario, the navigation system needs to continuously update and refine its feature map in order to adapt to the…

As robots are deployed in human spaces, it is important that they are able to coordinate their actions with the people around them. Part of such coordination involves ensuring that people have a good understanding of how a robot will act in…

A key problem of robotic environmental sensing and monitoring is that of active sensing: How can a team of robots plan the most informative observation paths to minimize the uncertainty in modeling and predicting an environmental…

Multi-robot path finding in dynamic environments is a highly challenging classic problem. In the movement process, robots need to avoid collisions with other moving robots while minimizing their travel distance. Previous methods for this…

With the development of cheap image sensors, the amount of available image data have increased enormously, and the possibility of using crowdsourced collection methods has emerged. This calls for development of ways to handle all these…

We present a multi-robot task and motion planning method that, when applied to the rearrangement of objects by manipulators, results in solution times up to three orders of magnitude faster than existing methods and successfully plans for…

Semantic mapping is a key component of robots operating in and interacting with objects in structured environments. Traditionally, geometric and knowledge representations within a semantic map have only been loosely integrated. However,…

Developing a safe, stable, and efficient obstacle avoidance policy in crowded and narrow scenarios for multiple robots is challenging. Most existing studies either use centralized control or need communication with other robots. In this…

This paper develops an algorithm that guides a multi-robot system in an unknown environment in search of fixed targets. The area to be scanned contains an unknown number of convex obstacles of unknown size and shape. The algorithm covers…

Many of today's robot perception systems aim at accomplishing perception tasks that are too simplistic and too hard. They are too simplistic because they do not require the perception systems to provide all the information needed to…

In open-ended continuous environments, robots need to learn multiple parameterised control tasks in hierarchical reinforcement learning. We hypothesise that the most complex tasks can be learned more easily by transferring knowledge from…

Path planning is a classic problem for autonomous robots. To ensure safe and efficient point-to-point navigation an appropriate algorithm should be chosen keeping the robot's dimensions and its classification in mind. Autonomous robots use…

Human-robot interaction can be divided into two categories based on the physical distance between the human and robot: remote and proximal. In proximal interaction, the human and robot often engage in close coordination; in remote…

Exploration of extreme or remote environments such as Mars is often recognized as an opportunity for multi-robot systems. However, this poses challenges for maintaining robust inter-robot communication without preexisting infrastructure. It…

Autonomous exploration of unknown environments using a team of mobile robots demands distributed perception and planning strategies to enable efficient and scalable performance. Ideally, each robot should update its map and plan its motion…

In order to enable physical human-robot interaction where humans and (mobile) manipulators share their workspace and work together, robots have to be equipped with important capabilities to guarantee human safety. The robots have to…

Robotic exploration of unknown environments is fundamentally a problem of decision making under uncertainty where the robot must account for uncertainty in sensor measurements, localization, action execution, as well as many other factors.…

In many applications of autonomous mobile robots the following problem is encountered. Two maps of the same environment are available, one a prior map and the other a sensor map built by the robot. To benefit from all available information…