Model-directed mobile robot navigation

The authors report on the system and methods used by UMass Mobile Robot Project. Model-based processing of the visual sensory data is the primary mechanism used for controlling movement of an autonomous land vehicle through the environment, measuring progress towards a given goal, and avoiding obstacles. Goal-oriented navigation takes place through a partially modeled, unchanging environment that contains no unmodeled obstacles; this simplified environment provides a foundation for research in more complicated domains. The navigation system integrates perception, planning, and execution of actions. Of particular importance is that the planning processes are reactive and reason about landmarks that should be perceived at various stages of task execution. Correspondence between image features and expected landmark locations are used at several abstraction levels to ensure proper plan execution. The system and some experiments that demonstrate the performance of its components is described