Ascending stairway modeling: A first step toward autonomous multi-floor exploration

Abstract

Abstract-Many robotics platforms are capable of ascending stairways, but all existing approaches for autonomous stair climbing use stairway detection as a trigger for immediate traversal. In the broader context of autonomous exploration, the ability to travel between floors of a building should be compatible with path planning, such that the robot can traverse a stairway at a time that is appropriate to its navigation goals.No system yet presented is capable of both localizing stairways on a map and estimating their properties, functions that in combination would enable stairways to be considered as traversable terrain in a path planning algorithm. We propose a method for modeling stairways as objects and localizing them on a map, such that they can be subsequently traversed if they are of dimensions that the robotic platform is capable of climbing. Our system consists of two parts: a computationally efficient detector that leverages geometric cues from depth imagery to detect sets of ascending stairs, and a stairway modeler that uses multiple detections to infer the location and parameters of a stairway that is discovered during exploration. This video demonstrates the performance of the system in a number of real-world situations, modeling and localizing a variety of stairway types in both indoor and outdoor environments.

Decentralized Multi-Floor Exploration by a Swarm of Miniature Robots Teaming with Wall-Climbing Units

“…Attempts have been made to address these challenges separately: e.g. autonomous multi-floor exploration by a single robot [19], [20], semi-autonomous exploration of multi-floor buildings with a legged robot [21], navigation for service robots in the elevator environment [22], autonomous multifloor navigation by micro-aerial vehicles [23]. However, to the best of our knowledge, the autonomous exploration and monitoring of an unknown indoor space consisting of multiple floors with dynamic features by a fully decentralized MRS remains an open challenge.…”