An autonomous unmanned vehicle for CBRNE reconnaissance

This paper presents a research project for a CBRNE hazard detection robot prototype. One of the main design principles was the usage of commercially available sensors that can be exchanged and upgraded easily without touching the underlying robot platform. The paper will also describe the autonomy functions for the navigation in unknown terrain. The local navigation service has the task to avoid collisions while driving towards a goal given in a local robot coordinate system. Obstacles are detected by the local navigation services using the laser scanners and are marked within a local map. The approach then tries to find a collision free path within this map data structure by carrying out a search in configuration space.