A novel approach for path planning, area explore and area retrieval of an autonomous robot using the low-cost infrared sensors

This paper presents a set of novel techniques along with the algorithms that are proposed to analyze various physical characteristics of arena autonomously by a robot. The proposed methodology and algorithms identify such characteristics on the basis of sensing intense and sudden change in physical characteristics of the area which it being explored. The ultimate function of these novel techniques is to efficiently explore the arena and successfully reconstruct it after completing whole exploration process. It would provide not only be a cost-effective solution for the problem of traversing the arena of large dimensions but also would be a swift and uncomplicated method to do so. With the major objective of proposing an inexpensive solution to the problem, the proposed methodology is designed to work with low-cost infrared sensors in performing all the necessary and inter-related tasks of path planning, area explore and area retrieval. The proposed methodology was implemented in an arena containing rapidly changing physical characteristics with the target of traversing whole arena and finally providing the output based on how accurately changes detected to give an inferential analysis of whole arena. In the process, we also came with a novel approach to plan the path with low cost infrared sensors instead of using high cost long range cameras. The methodology was able to give 82% percent correct results with respect to the parameters set for the manual testing.