Terrain assessment for service robots

When travelling in unfamiliar environments, a mobile service robot needs to acquire information about its surroundings in order to detect and avoid obstacles to arrive safely at its destination. This paper presents a map building solution to support mobile service robot´s navigation, for service robots equipped with a LADAR (laser detection and ranging) or similar technology. The LADAR is positioned in a way suitable for sensing in a three dimensional world and an AHRS (attitude and heading reference system) sensor is used to increase the robustness of the system to variations on the robot´s attitude. Experimental results suggest that the developed solution can be a good option for service robots driving in urban environments.