Simulation and validation of interior and exterior navigational strategies for autonomous robotic assessments of energy

Approximately 40% of all US energy usage and carbon emissions are attributed to buildings. Energy audits of buildings are an effective way to identify significant energy savings, but the extensive training of auditors and cost of the audits result in only a very small fraction of buildings receiving an audit. Automation of the audit process using robots can offer more detailed information for better recommendations and greatly reduce the cost of audits. This paper discusses navigational strategies that would be used by ground and aerial robots as they conduct automated energy audits. The strategies are split into two scenarios: interior and exterior navigation. Simulations for both the interior and exterior navigational algorithms are presented. Lastly, a ground robot platform is developed to validate the navigational strategies.