Related papers: Autonomous Teamed Exploration of Subterranean Envi…
This paper presents a self-contained system for the robust utilization of aerial robots in the autonomous exploration of cave environments to help human explorers, first responders, and speleologists. The proposed system is generally…
Robotic exploration of underground environments is a particularly challenging problem due to communication, endurance, and traversability constraints which necessitate high degrees of autonomy and agility. These challenges are further…
The interest in exploring planetary bodies for scientific investigation and in-situ resource utilization is ever-rising. Yet, many sites of interest are inaccessible to state-of-the-art planetary exploration robots because of the robots'…
Autonomous exploration of subterranean environments constitutes a major frontier for robotic systems as underground settings present key challenges that can render robot autonomy hard to achieve. This has motivated the DARPA Subterranean…
Efficient exploration of unknown environments is crucial for autonomous robots, especially in confined and large-scale scenarios with limited communication. To address this challenge, we propose a collaborative exploration framework for a…
Autonomous exploration of unknown environments has been widely applied in inspection, surveillance, and search and rescue. In exploration task, the basic requirement for robots is to detect the unknown space as fast as possible. In this…
This work contributes a marsupial robotic system-of-systems involving a legged and an aerial robot capable of collaborative mapping and exploration path planning that exploits the heterogeneous properties of the two systems and the ability…
One common and desirable application of robots is exploring potentially hazardous and unstructured environments. Air-ground collaboration offers a synergistic approach to addressing such exploration challenges. In this paper, we demonstrate…
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…
This work presents a 3D multi-robot exploration framework for a team of UGVs moving on uneven terrains. The framework was designed by casting the two-level coordination strategy presented in [1] into the context of multi-robot exploration.…
Autonomous navigation in unknown environments is a fundamental challenge in robotics, particularly in coordinating ground and aerial robots to maximize exploration efficiency. This paper presents a novel approach that utilizes a…
The ability to efficiently and effectively explore planetary surfaces is currently limited by the capability of wheeled rovers to traverse challenging terrains, and by pre-programmed data acquisition plans with limited in-situ flexibility.…
Exploration and mapping of unknown environments is a fundamental task in applications for autonomous robots. In this article, we present a complete framework for deploying MAVs in autonomous exploration missions in unknown subterranean…
While autonomous multi-robots can achieve safe and coordinated navigation, they often struggle to adapt to unforeseen conditions and to capture operator-driven objectives in unstructured environments. We present a Virtual Reality (VR)-based…
We present a waypoint planning algorithm for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is teamed with an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) for the task of search and rescue in a subterranean environment. The UAV and UGV are teamed such that the…
Heterogeneous teams of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can enhance the exploration capabilities of aerial robots by exploiting different strengths and abilities of varying UAVs. This paper presents a novel method for exploring unknown…
In this work, we present an end-to-end heterogeneous multi-robot system framework where ground robots are able to localize, plan, and navigate in a semantic map created in real time by a high-altitude quadrotor. The ground robots choose and…
This paper presents a comprehensive overview of exploration strategies utilized in both 2D and 3D environments, focusing on autonomous multi-robot systems designed for building exploration and fire detection. We explore the limitations of…
Robotic fleets such as unmanned aerial and ground vehicles have been widely used for routine inspections of static environments, where the areas of interest are known and planned in advance. However, in many applications, such areas of…
This paper presents a method for cave surveying in total darkness using an autonomous aerial vehicle equipped with a depth camera for mapping, downward-facing camera for state estimation, and forward and downward lights. Traditional methods…