» Download Article

Authors
Ziparo, Vittorio Amos; Kleiner, Alexander; Farinelli, Alessandro; Marchetti, Luca; Nardi, Daniele

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.3182/20070903-3-FR-2921.00094

Page Numbers:
554-559

Index Terms
No keywords available

Abstract
To coordinate a team of robots for exploration is a challenging problem, particularly in unstructured areas, as for example post-disaster scenarios where direct communication is severely constrained. Furthermore, conventional methods of SLAM, e.g. those performing data association based on visual features, are doomed to fail due to bad visibility caused by smoke and fire. We use indirect communication (based on RFIDs), to share knowledge and use a gradient-like local search to direct robots towards interesting areas. To share a common frame of reference among robots we use a feature based SLAM approach (where features are RFIDs). The approach has been evaluated on a 3D simulation based on USARSim.

References

[1] Balakirsky, S., C. Scrapper, S. Carpin and
    M. Lewis. (2006). "USARSim: providing a
    framework for multi-robot performance evaluation"..
    In: Proceedings of PerMIS 2006.
[2] Balch, T. and R. C. Arkin (1994). Communication
    in reactive multiagent robotic systems.
    Autonomous Robots 1(1), 27-52.
[3] Bohn, Jürgen and Friedemann Mattern (2004).
    Super-distributed rfid tag infrastructures. In:
    Proceedings of the 2nd European Symposium
    on Ambient Intelligence.
[4] CAEN (2007). Homepage of caen rfid. http://
    www.caen.it/index.php.
[5] Carpin, S., M. Lewis, J. Wang, S. Balakirsky and
    C. Scrapper. (2006). Bridging the gap between
    simulation and reality in urban search
    and rescue. In: Robocup 2006: Robot Soccer
    World Cup X. Springer, LNAI.
[6] Durrant-Whyte, H., D. Rye and E. Nebot (1996).
    Localisation of automatic guided vehicles.
    In: Robotics Research: The 7th International
    Symposium. Springer Verlag. pp. 613-625.
[7] Hähnel, D., W. Burgard, D. Fox, K. Fishkin and
    M. Philipose (2004). Mapping and localization
    with rfid technology. In: Proc. of the
    IEEE International Conference on Robotics
    and Automation.
[8] Homepage of Robocup (2006). http://www.
    robocup2006.org.
[9] Kantor, G. and S. Singh (2002). Preliminary results
    in range-only localization and mapping.
    In: Proc. of the IEEE International Conference
    on Robotics and Automation. Washington
    D.C., USA.
[10] Kantor, G., S. Singh, R. Peterson, D. Rus, A. Das,
     V. Kumar, G. Pereira and J. Spletzer (2003).
     Distributed search and rescue with robot and
     sensor team. In: Proceedings of the Fourth International
     Conference on Field and Service
     Robotics. Sage Publications. pp. 327-332.
[11] Kehagias, A., J. Djugash and S. Singh (2006).
     Range-only slam with interpolated range
     data. Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon
     University.
[12] Kleiner, A. and V.A. Ziparo (2006). Homepage of
     virtual rescuerobots
     freiburg. http://gkiweb.informatik.
     uni-freiburg.de/~rescue/virtual/.
[13] Kleiner, A., J. Prediger and B. Nebel (2006). Rfid
     technology-based exploration and slam for
     search and rescue. In: Proc. of the IEEE/RSJ
     Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems.
[14] Kurth, D., G. Kantor and S. Singh (2003). Experimental
     results in range-only localization with
     radio. In: Proc. of the IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf.
     on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Las Vegas,
     USA.
[15] Lu, F. and E. Milios (1997). Globally consistent
     range scan alignment for environment mapping.
     Auton. Robots 4, 333-349.
[16] Miller, L.E., P. F. Wilson, N. P. Bryner, Francis,
     J. R. Guerrieri, D. W. Stroup and L. Klein-Berndt
      (2006). Rfid-assisted indoor localization
     and communication for first responders.
     In: Proc. of the Int. Symposium on Advanced
     Radio Technologies.
[17] Nevatia, Yashodan, Mentar Mahmudi, Stefan
     Markov, Ravi Rathnam, Todor Stoyanov,
     and Stefano Carpin (2006). Virtual-iub: the
     2006 iub virtual robots team. In: Proc. Int.
     RoboCup Symposium '06. Bremen, Germany.
[18] Pfingsthorn, Max, Bayu Slamet, Arnoud Visser
     and Nikos Vlassis (2006). Uva rescue team
     2006 robocup rescue - simulation league. In:
     Proc. Int. RoboCup Symposium '06. Bremen,
     Germany.
[19] Russell, Stuart J. and Peter Norvig (2003). Artificial
     Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Pearson
     Education.
[20] Scerri, P., Y. Xu, E. Liao, G. Lai, M. Lewis
     and K. Sycara (2004). Coordinating large
     groups of wide area search munitions. In:
     Recent Developments in Cooperative Control
     and Optimization. pp. 451-480. Singapore:
     World Scientific.
[21] Seidel, S. Y. and T. S. Rapport (1992). 914 mhz
     path loss prediction model for indoor wireless
     communications in multi-floored buildings.
     IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation.
[22] Svennebring, J. and S. Koenig (2004). Building
     terrain-covering ant robots: A feasibility
     study. Auton. Robots 16(3), 313-332.
[23] Tambe, M (1997). Towards flexible teamwork.
     Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
     7, 88-124.
[24] Yamauchi, B. (1997). A frontier-based approach
     for autonomous exploration. In: IEEE International
     Symposium on Computational Intelligence
     in Robotics and Automation.
[25] Ziparo, V.A., A. Kleiner, B. Nebel and D. Nardi
     (2007). Rfid-based exploration for large robot
     teams. In: Proc. of the IEEE Int. Conf. on
     Robotics and Automation. Rome, Italy.