Robot mapping with proximity detectors
Raashid Malik, Samuel Prasad · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1993
Robots operating in unknown environments need to acquire knowledge about the environment to facilitate navigation and other tasks. Control procedures that enable a robot to acquire environment knowledge are referred to as mapping our terrain-acquisition procedures. All motion control procedures are influenced by the underlying models. In this area the significant models are: the robot model, the sensor model and the environment model. In this paper we present a mapping algorithm that uses a sensor model based on a proximity detector. The sensor is capable of detecting the presence or absence of objects within an annular ring of radius R to R + (Delta) , surrounding the robot. The sensor provides no exact range information but does indicate that angular region of contact with an obstacle. The robot is modelled as a disc of radius r (r