ROBOT-MOTION IN UNSTRUCTURED ENVIRONMENT

摘要

To operate an autonomous Vehicle in off-road terrain is one of the most difficult problems in Robotic. Since it is not possible to build a high resolution model of an unstructured terrain, in particular of a battlefield, a robot driving through this terrain has to be able to adapt its motion to the real world. In the German experimental program "Robotic for the Battlefield" therefore a key function is real time obstacle detection and avoidance. In conjunction with a gyro-system and an optical tracker this function ensures a cross-country driving on a pre-planned path by surveying the real world. Using an active (time-of-flight) laser-scanner a 3d-image, consisting of 128 x 64 Voxels, is generated once a second and real-time transformed into a 2d-obstaclemap. This map is used by the Navigation-computer to avoid obstacles while following the given path as close as possible. A prototype of this system has been tested under real conditions in field-tests already.