A system for volumetric robotic mapping of abandoned mines

Author

Thrun, Sebastian ; Hahnel, Dirk ; Ferguson, David ; Montemerlo, Michael ; Triebel, Rudolph ; Burgard, Wolfram ; Baker, Christopher ; Omohundro, Zachary ; Thayer, Scott ; Whittaker, William

Author_Institution

Sch. of Comput. Sci., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Volume

3

fYear

2003

fDate

14-19 Sept. 2003

Firstpage

4270

Abstract

This paper describes two robotic systems developed for acquiring accurate volumetric maps of underground mines. One system is based on a cart instrumented by laser range finders, pushed through a mine by people. Another is a remotely controlled mobile robot equipped with laser range finders. To build consistent maps of large mines with many cycles, we describe an algorithm for estimating global correspondences and aligning robot paths. This algorithm enables us to recover consistent maps several hundreds of meters in diameter, without odometric information. We report results obtained in two mines, a research mine in Bruceton, PA, and an abandoned coal mine in Burgettstown, PA.

Keywords

laser ranging; mining; mobile robots; path planning; remotely operated vehicles; robot vision; Bruceton mine; Burgettstown mine; abandoned coal mine; coal mine; global correspondence estimation; laser range finders; remotely controlled mobile robot; robot path alignment; robotic systems; underground mines; volumetric robotic mapping; Accidents; Computer errors; Computer science; Iterative algorithms; Laser theory; Navigation; Remotely operated vehicles; Robot sensing systems; Safety; Simultaneous localization and mapping;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robotics and Automation, 2003. Proceedings. ICRA '03. IEEE International Conference on

ISSN

1050-4729

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7736-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ROBOT.2003.1242260

Filename

1242260