Indoor Visual Exploration with Multi-Rotor Aerial Robotic Vehicles

Abstract

In this work, we develop a reactive algorithm for autonomous exploration of indoor, unknown environments for multiple autonomous multi-rotor robots. The novelty of our approach rests on a two-level control architecture comprised of an Artificial-Harmonic Potential Field (AHPF) for navigation and a low-level tracking controller. Owing to the AHPF properties, the field is provably safe while guaranteeing workspace exploration. At the same time, the low-level controller ensures safe tracking of the field through velocity commands to the drone’s attitude controller, which handles the challenging non-linear dynamics. This architecture leads to a robust framework for autonomous exploration, which is extended to a multi-agent approach for collaborative navigation. The integration of approximate techniques for AHPF acquisition further improves the computational complexity of the proposed solution. The control scheme and the technical results are validated through high-fidelity simulations, where all aspects, from sensing and dynamics to control, are incorporated, demonstrating the capacity of our method in successfully tackling the multi-agent exploration task.

An Efficient Solution to Optimal Motion Planning With Provable Safety and Convergence

“…In contrast, CMs, even in their simplest formulations, provide smooth velocity commands, which are more suitable for state (position)-feedback control of robotic platforms (e.g. [39]). Having a smooth velocity command for any position within the workspace renders real-world planning simpler, and opens up possibilities for reactive controllers for unseen and uncertain obstacles using the information encoded in the existing vector field.…”

Multi-Robot Exploration Employing Harmonic Map Transformations

“…In [17], multi-robot multi-target Potential Fields are used for exploration, an approach that eliminates local minima for multi-robot Artificial Potential Fields. In the same vein, artificial harmonic potential fields were employed in [18], leading to a reactive algorithm for autonomous exploration for multiple autonomous multi-rotor robots. In [19], a collaborative multi-robot exploration method is proposed.…”