Map-Making with a Four-Legged Mobile Robot

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Map-Making with a Four-Legged Mobile
Robot Exploring Robotics and Robotic Map-making
at the Undergraduate Level
Ben Willard, Kurt Krebsbach Lawrence University
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Project Overview and Goals

• Main Goal
• Develop software for a Sony AIBO robot that will
  create a map of a previously unknown indoor
  hallway environment. This map should
• Be recognizable by humans as a map of the given
  environment
• Be interpretable by the robot so that it can use
  the map to perform more complicated tasks in the
  future
• Secondary Goal
• Learn about the AIBO and build a base of AIBO
  related information for use by other interested
  students

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SLAM with the AIBO

• Simultaneous localization and mapping a difficult
  task for any robot
• SLAM with an AIBO is particularly tricky (and
  silly) due to
• Bad odometry
• Legs produce noisy and inaccurate odometry
  compared to wheels (which are also noisy and
  inaccurate, to be sure)
• Range sensors that are not made for mapping
• IR Sensor has short range and low accuracy
• Its necessary to pan the head constantly in
  order to get IR Sensor data viewing places other
  than the robots immediate front.

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